Glaspaleis - Present Use

Present Use

The Glaspaleis now houses the public library, an arthouse cinema, an art gallery and an architectural centre ('Vitruvianum'). A music school with 2900 students is housed in a new building, connected to the Glass Palace through the first basement, ground floor and mezzanine floor. Some rooms in the Glaspaleis itself are also part of the music school, including a ballet room in the basement. At ground floor and in the penthouse are restaurants.

The 'Stadsgalerij' (city gallery) is housed in the basement, but expositions are also occasionally shown on other floors. It is building up a collection of modern art, such as COBRA and related art. Its eccentric position in relation to other Dutch art museums makes it important for the region.

The library is spread over four floors and is the big attractor with 250,000 visitors per year, which also benefits the other occupants. Conversely, its collection has a focus on the topics of the other occupants, resulting in a dynamic situation of mutual cultural impulses.

The arthouse cinema, De Spiegel ('the Mirror'), is a volunteer organisation, focusing on quality, as opposed to mainstream cinema, showing films by David Lynch, Peter Greenaway, Stanley Kubrick and Woody Allen, but also lesser known film directors. There are plans to use the glass walls as projection screens, projecting films from the inside, which can be viewed from the squares surrounding the building.