teylers museum

In beautiful Haarlem, just a 15 minute train outside Amsterdam, the Teylers Museum is a gem within a gem.

The museum is set within a gorgeous two hundred year old building, full of marble statues and tasteful design. Skylights open onto the cabinet cases, highlighting rich dark wood, and shadowy niches hide hidden treasures.

The building itself is worth a visit, but the museum inside is even better. There are modern facilities and add ons, but essentially this is a museum built in the traditional style. The first entrance holds ancient fossils and minerals, a reconstructed cave bear, the jaws of overgrown carnivores and some of the best full layout original fossils from the dinosaur period you will see anywhere on display. I especially appreciated the tiny sparrow-sized fossils of Pterodactylus micronyx, sure to challenge preconceptions of Pterodactyls as flying monsters.

The Instrument Room is another stunner. Full of scientific instruments designed hundreds of years ago, it is just amazing what scientists were able to discover using elaborate purpose-built machines made up of glass and metal alone. The electrostatic generator must be a favourite - the enormous machine fills up half the room and generated electricity simply through the process of rubbing against cushions. Yet through ingenious design it is capable of producing and storing 320 000 volts! Old astrolobes, models of the solar system, sextants and elaborate navigational devices, the Netherlands was a centre for scientific excellence at the time - and this museum proves it. I quite liked the device for creating a vacuum - it was considered theologically impossible (a hot topic for religious debates at the time), and yet was proven with two half spheres that took 24 horses to drag apart.

Other rooms hold rare books, old coins, Dutch masterpieces - there really is something for everyone.

The museum is open 10-5pm Tuesday to Saturday and 12-5pm Sundays and public holidays. Tours in English, Dutch, German and French are available if booked in advance, otherwise the multilingual audio-tour is great.

This is a museum about study books, physical instruments, drawings, fossiels and minerals. In 1779 Leendert Viervant (architect) started the design for "book and concertroom" which was going to be build behind the house of Tyler. In the year 1784 the famous oval room was open for the public. This museum has a lot to offer, also nice pictures, machines. You won't get boared in this museum. Price for adults is €7.
Openingstime :Thuesday t/m saturdag van 10 - 17 hour. Sunday and celebrationdays from 12 - 17 hour.Closed on 25 december and 1 januari.On 26 december (2e Christmasday ) the museum will be open from 12 – 17 uur.
You can find this museum at Spaarne 16 in Haarlem.

Anthony viervant was the architect of the middle building of the white villa in arnhem. And i found out just now that they are realy related. They also designed the Proeflokaal in Arnhem. (and they are very far related to my father, very nice)