The sound of Groningen: The Groninger Museum

Recently, the Groninger Museum has received a lot of special attention, because of the David Bowie exhibition that they have, especially after he died. I had the special opportunity to meet the director of the Groninger Museum, Andreas Blühm, to hear about what makes this museum with its exhibition so special. First of all, the location of a museum matters a lot together with its design. Here, the Groninger Museum was lucky with a location really close to the Central Station and a design that catches the eye of people immediately. The building has a somewhat unnatural shape and is extremely colourful which makes people curious about what is inside. Therefore, at the opening in 1994, expectations of the museum were high, but Andreas Blühm himself was also sceptical. He thought the architecture would lose its attractiveness over time, but luckily he was wrong. The museum still attracts more or less 200,000 visitors per year.

Second, what a museum offers is of course important. For instance, Andreas Blühm said that a museum like Louvre in Paris will always attract visitors, only because it has the famous Mona Lisa. All of a sudden, because of the David Bowie exhibition, the Groninger Museum now attracts an enormous number of visitors, coming from everywhere. The limited amount of spots and the popularity make it possible to charge a higher price, which is extra good for profits of course. Good connections were an important reason that Andreas Blühm was able to buy the exhibition from London, as the smallest city worldwide offering this unique exhibition. This worked out extremely well and visitor numbers really exploded on the day that David Bowie died. The museum even became a place of memorial for the star. And the rest will become part of history…