ARTIS-Groote Museum

Located within Amsterdam’s ARTIS Zoo, the ARTIS-Groote Museum is a 170-year-old interactive nature museum. It offers visitors a journey through exhibits that highlight the interconnectedness of humans, animals, plants, and microbes. The museum features interactive installations, art pieces, and workshops designed to engage the senses and deepen the understanding of our relationship with nature. The historic building, constructed between 1850 and 1855, provides a unique backdrop for this exploration. Visitors can participate in audio tours narrated by actress Monic Hendrickx and join various workshops to further their engagement with the exhibits. The museum is accessible to visitors of all ages and is part of the ARTIS complex, which also includes the ARTIS Zoo and Micropia. Admission is free for children up to 12 years old and Museumkaart holders. ([artis.nl](https://www.artis.nl/en/artis-groote-museum?utm_source=openai))

Planning your visit

The ARTIS-Groote Museum reopened in 2022 after decades closed, inside a monumental building of 1855 within Amsterdam's ARTIS zoo — the oldest zoo in the Netherlands. Its argument is that the old separation between natural history and human life makes no sense: the exhibits trace connections between humans, animals, plants and microbes, treating the visitor's own body as part of the same system. Interactive installations, contemporary art commissions and sensory exhibits carry that rather than traditional taxonomic display cases.

It is a museum of ideas rather than specimens, and it will not satisfy visitors expecting mounted skeletons and dioramas. What it does well is make the familiar strange — the scale of the microbial world, the shared biology across species, the human place within rather than above.

The historic interior, restored to its nineteenth-century condition with galleries and skylights, is a substantial part of the appeal.

It sits within the ARTIS complex alongside the zoo and Micropia, the microbe museum, and tickets are usually structured accordingly. Bookable options include self-guided museum entry and combined tickets covering the ARTIS Royal Zoo and the Groote Museum together, which is the better value if you intend to spend a day on the site. Audio tours are available. Current availability is shown below.