Naturalis Biodiversity Center


Naturalis Biodiversity Center is a national museum of natural history and a research center on biodiversity in Leiden, Netherlands. The museum, except the research facilities, was closed from September 2018 to mid 2019 due to renovations. Temporary exhibitions were held in the Pesthuis entrance building during the renovations.
Although its current name and organization are relatively recent, the history of Naturalis can be traced back to the early 1800s. Its collection includes approximately 37 million specimens, making it one of the largest natural history collections in the world.

History

The beginnings of Naturalis go back to the creation of the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie by Dutch King William I on August 9, 1820. In 1878, the geological and mineralogical collections of the museum were split off into a separate museum, remaining distinct until the merger of the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie with the Rijksmuseum van Geologie en Mineralogie in 1984, to form the Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum or National Museum of Natural History.
In 1986, it was decided that the institution should become a public museum, and a new building was designed by the Dutch architect Fons Verheijen. The building's reception area incorporated the 1657-1661 Pesthuis, designed by Huybert Corneliszoon van Duyvenvlucht. Completed in 1998, it was opened on April 7, 1998 by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. The new building costs were about €60 million, making it the second most expensive museum building in the Netherlands.
In 2010 the National Museum of Natural History further combined with the Zoological Museum Amsterdam of the University of Amsterdam, and the Dutch National Herbaria at the universities of Leiden, Amsterdam and Wageningen, to form the Nederlands Centrum voor Biodiversiteit. The combined institute was formally opened as part of the ‘International Year of Biodiversity 2010’ by Education Minister of Ronald Plasterk and Agriculture Minister Gerda Verburg.
In 2012 the name became the Naturalis Biodiversity Center. Naturalis has partnered with ETI Bioinformatics in support of the Catalog of Life, and is working with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.
Funding is in place to support digitization of the massed collections.
In 2015, further renovation and expansion was planned, with a proposed design from Neutelings Riedijk Architecten to be completed in 2018. The Pesthuis will no longer be part of the complex. However, a lawsuit by the previous architect postponed these plans.

Collection

The current museum is known for the numerous objects in its collections. Prior to the merger with the Zoölogisch Museum Amsterdam and National Herbarium of the Netherlands, there were approximately 10 million zoological and geological specimens in the Naturalis collection. Following the merger with the collections of the Zoölogisch Museum Amsterdam and National Herbarium of the Netherlands in 2010-12, there are now approximately 42 million specimens:

  • 12,000 galls
  • 6,000 slime molds
  • 121,000 wood samples
  • 140,000 books
  • 14,000 scientific journal titles
  • 57,000 prints and drawings
  • 13,000 maps
  • 91,500 microfiche
  • 310.000 photographs, slides and glass negatives
    • The largest part of the collections are stored in a 60-meter-high tower, a landmark in Leiden, opened in April 1998. Some parts of the collections are stored in a depot in the former museum building at the Raamsteeg in the city center of Leiden.

    Explorers

    Among the collections at Naturalis are the papers and field notes of a number of early travelers and naturalists, including the following:

  • Heinrich Kuhl
  • Heinrich Christian Macklot
  • Salomon Müller
  • Pieter van Oort
  • Carl Anton Schwaner
  • Alexander Zippelius

    • Exhibitions

    Permanent exhibitions

    The museum has several permanent exhibitions:

    Collections

    Visitors

    YearVisitorsYearVisitors
    2008245,2752012251,500
    2009266,0002013307,500
    2010270,0002014300,000
    2011273,0002015339,550
    ----
    ----
    ----

    Naturalis had an estimated 285,000 visitors and was the 15th most visited museum of the Netherlands in 2013. The museum had a record number of 339,550 visitors in 2015.