Nieuw Land presents and preserves the larger part of the archives and museum collections of Flevoland: a broad outline of the history of the Dutch province of Flevoland. That fascinating history goes back in time much further than often imagined. The collections of Nieuw Land include six thousand year old archaeological finds from the days when Flevoland was still an extensive marshland. A great deal has been preserved from later periods also. The collections of Nieuw Land are really unique because of their wealth of information about the Zuyder Zee Project, the closure and reclamation of the Zuyder Zee and the development of 165,000 ha. new land. Archives with thousands of documents, photographs, films and soundtracks, implements, equipment, engravings and paintings are evidence of this largest ever land reclamation project.
Nieuw Land will be a cultural market place where history can be encountered, and where there is an interchange between concentrated study, knowledge-gathering and entertainment. This also means that the Heritage Centre will be offering knowledge in many different ways and at many different levels. It is a place where people also go together: as a family, in school groups, or study groups. Where it is not only the Heritage Centre that communicates, but the visitors themselves that share information: where grandparents tell stories to their grandchildren and children explain things to their parents.
Nieuw Land's main theme is the history of the inhabitants of the area that is currently called the Province of Flevoland. This main topic in the Museum is worked out in six different exhibitions or - as we prefer to call them - presentations. The first presentation that the visitor encounters, is the story of Engineer Cornelis Lely: he himself tells 'his' stunning story about the reclamations in the Zuyder Zee. In another part of the building - 'the tube' - the visitor will be able to look and listen with the eyes and ears of nine historic people who will take you back in time. No exhibitions with abstract themes, but nine small 'theatre performances' with the theme 'life on the edge of land and water'. The fascinating history of the Zuyder Zee Project is told in a reconstructed farm shed that was built in the Northeast Polder in 1951. In this exhibition, where guides take visitors round, the real issue is the technique of dike construction and the development of new land, land settlement, town development, etc. Finally, there are three presentations especially for children. The Water Theatre gives children an excellent opportunity to show their skills as water managers and hydraulic engineers by playing a variety of active and exciting games. In Underground, children can become archaeologists: they excavate real artefacts, which will subsequently be examined in an archaeological laboratory. The Water People is a thrilling theatre performance about the story of the people of the old sea, when the new land did not yet exist.
Nieuw Land has a team of professional researchers, archaeologists and historians who already have many years of experience with studying the history of Flevoland. They pass on their knowledge about the Zuyder Zee and IJsselmeer to interested visitors, pupils and students through courses, lectures and publications. The educational department maintains contacts with primary and secondary schools and prepares learning packages and other study material. Special educational projects can also be supported by Nieuw Land on request. The visitor can consult the www.flevolandbovenwater.nl website in the Multimedia library that gives access to the Digital Catalogue of Flevoland (Digitale Catalogus Flevoland), and the Study Centre offers an opportunity to search the archives and the library of the Heritage Centre and to research assignments, theses and dissertations. All in all, the Heritage Centre's collections give a complete picture of the early history and development of Flevoland, which makes it possible to quickly find answers to every question about Flevoland.
Just opposite Nieuw Land are more attractions that, together with Nieuw Land, give colour to this special spot on the boundary of land and water. The Batavia yard is widely known because of the authentic reconstruction of the seventeenth-century East Indiaman, the Batavia. The flagship of Admiral Michiel de Ruyter, De 7 Provinciën, is currently being reconstructed at the yard. Next to the yard, on the same site, The National Service for Cultural Heritage Lelystad (RCE Lelystad) has found its home. This institute is the national knowledge centre for maritime archaeology. The Batavia Stad outlet shopping centre attracts over a million visitors to the coast of Lelystad every year. This first shopping centre of its kind in the Netherlands offers top brands of clothing, accessories, etc. at large discounts in some 70 shops. A hundred metres south of Nieuw Land is Port Batavia, the home base of a few dozen historic ships of the Hanzestad Company: original Zuyder Zee smacks, tjalks and barges, but also splendid three-masted ships.
Adults: € 7,50
65+: € 7,00
Children 6 - 17: € 3,50
Museum card: free
School groups: € 2,50
Groups from 20 people: € 6,50
Guided tours € 1,00 pp (€15,- minimum, € 30,- maximum per guide. Please contact reception.)
Management team
ir J.A. (Arjan) Agema, director
mw. drs. W. (Wil) van der Most, head of collection and research
mw. drs. M. (Maria) Virto Marcilla MA, head of public and presentation.
Address
Nieuw Land
Oostvaardersdijk 01-13
P.O. Box 73
8200 AB Lelystad, the Netherlands
Tel: +31 (0) 320 260799
Fax +31 (0) 320 260436
E-mail: info@nieuwlanderfgoed.nl