Volendams Museum

In the Volendams Museum you will find a history of how the Volendam people lived and worked from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century. Volendam gained international fame through the many artists who distributed works of art and paintings by Volendam. You travel through the history of Volendam and see how Volendam has become the well-known village.

History of the Volendams museum

The Volendam Museum officially opened its doors in 1977, but long before that time initiatives were taken for a Volendam museum. It started in 1967 when the association Old Volendam had ideas for a museum about the history of Volendam, but these plans remained. The realization of the plans came in 1975 when the upper floor of the old sister monastery was vacant. A door-to-door action was taken and eventually yielded 18,000 guilders for the renovation. The Volendams Museum was housed in the old sister monastery until May 1986, but moved by the arrival of the nursing home Gouwzee. With the support of the municipality, province and other institutions, the current location on the dike was realized.

About the Volendams Museum

The Volendams Museum is located on the dike, close to the harbor. The permanent exhibition is about traditional costumes and historic interiors. There are five historically furnished rooms in the Botterstraat, one of which is a shop. The living rooms are decorated in the period between 1820 and 1920. In the museum you will also find exhibits of jewelery, paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, postcards, objects from fishing and expressions of folk art. The Volendams Museum also has an annually changing exhibition. One of the showpieces of the Volendams Museum is the cigar band house. The space was created between 1947 and 1996 when a retired monk stuck 11 million cigars in mosaic on the wall. The image was from the Dutch province weapons. Flevoland was added to this mosaic in 2013, since the province did not yet exist.