Museum Speelklok
Photo: Own work — CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Museum Speelklok in Utrecht displays a vast collection of self-playing musical instruments, from tiny music boxes to giant barrel organs, offering interactive experiences for all ages.
Planning your visit
Museum Speelklok holds self-playing instruments — music boxes, barrel organs, orchestrions, pianolas and automata — and the essential point is that they are played. Guided tours are the standard visit, and the guides start the machines, which is the only way any of this makes sense.
The street organs are the Dutch speciality: enormous, painted, carried on carts and cranked or driven by punched cardboard books, they were a fixture of Dutch cities and a few still operate.
The dance organs from Belgian ballrooms are louder still, with percussion, accordion and brass ranks.
The mechanical ingenuity — pinned barrels, punched books, pneumatic actions reproducing a pianist's dynamics — represents a century of engineering effort to reproduce music before recording made it obsolete.
It sits in central Utrecht in a former church. Allow ninety minutes. The main booking is an entry ticket. Current availability is listed below.
Before you book
Where is Museum Speelklok?
Museum Speelklok is in Utrecht, Netherlands. The map on this page marks its exact location.
How long should I allow for Museum Speelklok?
Allow ninety minutes. That is the time the collection itself takes at an unhurried pace, before any queue.
Do I need to book Museum Speelklok in advance?
Tickets can be bought on the door at quiet times, but booking ahead fixes the date and avoids the queue at busy ones. Live availability is shown on this page.
