Centraal Museum

Yesterday we visited Utrecht's Centraal Museum during the part of the day I wasn't at the conference. The main attractions were a large collection of De Stijl furniture (that we never managed to find) and the unique Standpoint gallery, where the curators are like D.J.s pulling a wild eclectic mix of art from the full collection, and then "remixing" it in galleries that are art in themselves.

giant sculptures in the gardenforget the art... I found the COFFEE!

Monroe tried this neat high chair in the coffeeshop. While she was enjoying it, we were told by the barista that it was a Reitveld! Reitveld is the architect associated with De Stijl, the movement Mondrian came from. So she was sitting in a piece of art!

Fancy architecture aside, OUR main reason for visiting the Centraal Museum was the Dick Bruna Huis. Dick Bruna is a Dutch artist that Eben's been following for around 10 years now. He's had a huge influence on Japanese pop art, of all things, and seems to have been the inspiration for the Hello Kitty franchise. That's right, he's a children's book artist. So we've had a few baby board books since long before we had a baby, just because of Eben's love for Miffy, the cute little bunny that made Dick Bruna famous.

Dick Bruna huis was awesome for us all! We got to learn about Dick Bruna's life and other work, and see all his books. Monroe got to go crazy in the kid-oriented interactive exhibit, where she rode a train, played with Eben in a tiny house, and crawled through an even smaller adorable little house only a baby could really use.