Rijksmuseum

The Night Watch, in the hall it was restored in, under public view during the work

Pierre Cuypers built a brick cathedral for art in 1885 and the Dutch spent ten years and hundreds of millions renovating it back to something close to his intention, reopening in 2013. The Gallery of Honour leads to the Night Watch the way a nave leads to an altar, which is exactly what was meant.

The collection covers eight centuries but the seventeenth is the reason to come: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals and the ship models, silver and delftware that show what the money was doing while the paintings were being made. The cycle passage underneath the building is a municipal right of way that the museum fought and lost.