Onzichtbaar tussen kunstschatten in Het Loo

The title 'Purveyor to the Royal Household' suggests that we  regularly visit royal palaces.  Royal Palace Het Loo has been open to the public since the last  renovation in 1984. It is therefore more of a museum than a palace.  And we have extensive experience with museums.

The new plans for renovation and expansion  are spectacular. The expansion of the museum is planned  under the square between the two wings.  Main contractor BAM has excavated almost the entire  site metres deep and constructed a  concrete  container including six exhibition rooms  . A partially glazed roof with  glass fountain basin allows you to look out from the floor onto  the sky and vice versa. 

Double-winged
The fire safety of the shop near the/exit gave the  architect, contractor and building manager a lot of  headaches. With the necessary consultancy work and an  engineering feat by Hoefnagels Fire Safety  , we found a beautiful and safe solution  in 2019. The plan is to close the 7-metre and over 3.5-metre wide  entrances to the shop in the event of a fire with  double-leaf and single-leaf sliding doors.  That is an additional challenge, because the doors must also be burglar-resistant.  The construction  is largely mounted in the clear, so  the sliding doors will disappear between the walls when  the museum is open. They are visually concealed  with a flap system that we also applied at  Museum Voorlinden. 

Wood and steel
The architect did not think that the appearance of our steel  doors was entirely in keeping with the rest of the  interior and decided to hang wooden  sliding doors in the corridor right in front of the steel doors.  Hoefnagels also supplies the structure and  controls. In the event of fire, the flaps open, the  steel doors close and the wooden doors open simultaneously.          This makes the wicket door accessible as an  escape route.  A second set of steel sliding doors  is clad in fine oak  by one of our partners. In normal conditions, these can be  used to separate exhibition halls. The  sliding doors make use of closing springs that also work  without the need for an electric motor. 

Covered
Some of the museum rooms belong to the same  fire compartment  and are therefore only closed with  non-fire-resistant, covered sliding doors.  Between one museum room and the exhibition there will be a  fire-resistant plus burglar-resistant sliding door with a  wicket door which we will finish entirely with  plaster on the exhibition side. We also supply and assemble these doors  , as well as two Radiation screens. 

Museum pieces
To see the works of art in the museum, you still need to be patient  . This autumn we will be installing just the  rail systems. Only in the spring of 2021  will the doors and screens be installed, and after the  summer of 2021 it will open to the public.  When you have finished admiring our doors,  it's nice to spend some time with other  museum pieces,  such as a Golden Coach and a  classic Ferrari that belonged to Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands.