Under 30For you
€35/ year
- Free entry, every day
- Skip the queue on Thursday nights
- Under-30 nights, third Friday of the month
- 10% off in the Kantine and shop
Contemporary art inside a 1931 ring kiln on the Rotterdam waterfront. It burned for 41 years without going out.
Open today 10:00–18:00Free every Thursday from 17:00
Now onHalls 1–3
Maartje Vos: Slow Fire
Until 17 Jan 2027
Slow Fire (study), painting live
00:00:00
01 / Exhibitions
Now on & next
Six shows in the old firing chambers, the drying loft and the 52-metre chimney. One ticket opens all of them.
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Forty years of paintings made inside a kiln. Vos layers pigment, ground glass and Maas clay on steel, then fires each panel at 1,040 °C for 72 hours. Sixty-four works across three firing chambers, ending with the four-metre Ovenwand she finished this spring.
Halls 1–3, ground floor · Curated by Dewi Hartono · Audio tour by the artist, 48 min, free · Read more
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Art made by following rules: pen plotters from 1968, a programmed light wall, a loom that weaves the tide table, and the six live works from our online collection, projected six metres wide in the Ovenzaal.
Hall 4, Ovenzaal · Curated by Dewi Hartono · Plotter demonstrations Saturdays 14:00
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Nine columns pressed from thirty tonnes of silt dredged out of the Maas, left to dry and crack in the open courtyard since May. They have lost a third of their height. By the closing weekend they will be about half.
The Courtyard · Free, no ticket needed · Closes Sunday 15 November
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Films about furnaces, volcanoes, glassworks and night shifts, shown in the old drying loft with the windows open to the harbour. This month: four documentaries from Iceland, Sicily and the Ruhr.
Drying loft, 2nd floor · Free with Thursday entry · 80 seats, first come
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A year of sky over Turku, woven. Aaltonen's jacquard loom reads a weather station's data and turns every hour of 2025 into a row of cloth: 365 metres of grey, gold and sudden blue.
Halls 5–6, first floor · Members' preview Thursday 4 February
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Forty voices recorded on the Maas at low tide, played inside the 52-metre chimney. The singing rises through the flue as the river outside falls, timed to the real tide table.
The Chimney · Timed entry, 12 people at a time · 20 min
02 / Featured exhibitionHalls 1–3, ground floor12 September 2026 – 17 January 2027
Maartje Vos
Vos doesn't paint her paintings, she fires them. Pigment, ground glass and Maas clay go into the kiln at 1,040 °C and come out 72 hours later as surfaces no brush could make. Slow Fire gathers sixty-four of them, from the first cracked panels of 1984 to the four-metre Ovenwand she finished in April.
“I don't paint them. I decide when to open the door.”
Maartje Vos, 2026
- 64
- Works, 1984–2026
- 72
- Hours in the kiln, each
- 1,040°
- Firing temperature
- 48
- Minute audio tour, free
03 / Collection online
The collectionis live.
Three fields of colour that never quite settle. Rest your cursor on the work and the horizon drifts toward it.
00:00:00A composition that keeps renovating itself, one panel at a time, the way the harbour around us does. Point at a field and it splits.
00:00:00Contour lines over washes of sand and one stripe of open water. Your cursor raises an island.
00:00:00A celadon glaze crackling as it cools, one fault at a time, then fired again. Hold still over it and it heats up.
00:00:00Pigment soaking into wet paper, one thin layer at a time. Tap or click to drop in more colour.
00:00:00Forty-two bands that move like the Maas at slack tide, slow and heavy. Run your cursor across and the water bends around it.
00:00:0004 / Visit
Open today
10:00–18:00 · Thursdays until 21:00Ovenkade 9, Rotterdam+31 10 555 0386
Opening hours
Six days a week. Late on Thursdays.
| Monday | Closed |
|---|---|
| Tuesday | 10:00–18:00 |
| Wednesday | 10:00–18:00 |
| Thursday | 10:00–21:00 |
| Friday | 10:00–18:00 |
| Saturday | 10:00–18:00 |
| Sunday | 10:00–18:00 |
Closed 25 December and 1 January. Open on King's Day, 10:00–16:00.
Every Thursday, 17:00–21:00
Free Thursdays.
Every gallery, every Thursday evening, free for everyone. No ticket, no catch, no booking. Stay for the 19:30 film in the drying loft, and the Kantine pours wine until 21:30.
Getting here
Nine minutes from the metro, twelve by water.
- MetroLines A, B and C to Marconiplein, then walk south down the Vierhavensstraat and turn left at the chimney.
- TramTram 4 to Marconiplein. Same walk, same chimney.
- WaterWater taxi from the Erasmusbrug to the Kiln pier: twelve minutes, about €6 a person.
- BikeThree hundred free spaces under the chimney, plus a pump and a toolbox at the desk.
- CarThe M4H garage on the Keileweg, €2.80 an hour. We'd rather you cycled.
Access
Step-free, top to chimney.
- MovingStep-free throughout, lifts to all four floors, wheelchairs and folding stools to borrow at the desk.
- QuietQuiet hours every Sunday from 10:00 to 12:00: lower lights, no films, half the visitors.
- ReadingLarge-print labels at every exhibition entrance, and all audio tours transcribed.
- TogetherCompanions of disabled visitors go free. Assistance dogs welcome everywhere.
05 / Tickets
Tickets
Walk in, or pick a time slot and skip the queue. Only Sunday afternoons ever fill up.
- Adult€18
- Student or CJPWith a valid card€9
- Under 19Free
- MuseumkaartReserve a slot with your card number at the deskFree
- MembersFree
- Everyone, Thursdays 17:00–21:00Free
- Your ticket opens every exhibition in the building, including the chimney. Leave and come back the same day as often as you like.
06 / Membership
Come backoften.
4,812 members, most of them a bike ride away. Members came back 9.4 times last year. A Friend membership pays for itself on the fourth visit.
FriendMost popular
€65/ year
- Free entry, every day
- Previews of every exhibition
- Hitte, our magazine, three times a year
- 10% off in the Kantine and shop
DuoTwo adults + kids
€110/ year
- Free entry for two named adults and their children
- Previews for both of you
- Two guest passes a year
- 10% off in the Kantine and shop
PatronKeeps the fire lit
€450/ year
- Everything in Duo
- Private curator tours, four a year
- Studio visits with exhibiting artists
- Your name on the donor wall by the fire door
Join in a minute. Your card works the same day.
07 / Kantine
Kantine
Our café is in the old drying loft, with long tables and the whole harbour in the windows. Lotte Jansen bakes the bread where the kiln's fire door used to be. No ticket needed.
Tue–Sun 9:30–18:00 · Thu until 21:30
08 / Shop
Shop
Books, prints and things for the kitchen, most of them made within forty kilometres. Every frame print is one moment of a live work, saved the second you order it.