Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Tag: Travel

  • An Open And Shut Case

    We bought our first fully-electric car five years ago – a Skoda Enyaq. We’ve been very pleased with it. Amongst its many bells and whistles is the ability to contact an Emergency Call Centre in the event of an accident. If an airbag inflates or a seat belt tensioner is activated, then a call will be made automatically and information such as the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number), the location and severity of the accident is also transmitted.

    It is also possible to place a call manually by opening the cap that covers the SOS button in the unit situated overhead.

    At the beginning of this year, the latch that holds the cap closed failed, and the cap was permanently in the open position. It didn’t worry us, because the SOS button itself is in a recess and unlikely to be pressed accidentally.

    However, a couple of months later the car started reporting a problem with the unit and advised a visit to the garage. The car went in on the 9th April for inspection. The result was that a small 12v battery supplying power to the unit needed to be replaced but the battery was currently on backorder. The work could not be done until a replacement battery was available.

    When I collected the car, I noticed that the cap was now closed, so I assumed that the garage had at least repaired the latch.

    Yesterday, the car was back in the garage to have the battery replaced. After collecting the car, I thought I would try opening the cap, but it wouldn’t budge. I asked the service person at the garage to take a look and he came back a few minutes later to tell me that it had been glued shut. Consternation!

    Why on earth someone in the garage had glued it shut in April, I really have no idea – it defeats the purpose of pushing the button if needed.

    When I got home, I used a couple of small screwdrivers to prise open the cap and yes, it had indeed been glued shut.

    The garage rang me this morning to apologise – they will replace the whole unit – and I’ve made an appointment for the work to be done.

  • A Visit To The Depot

    The Boijmans Van Beuningen museum in Rotterdam has a vast collection of items, of which only about 6 to 8% of which are on display at any one time. The rest were being housed in a variety of locations in the Netherlands, including the basement of the museum.

    The basement was flooded in 2013, thus prompting a plan to build a new storage facility close to the museum that would be capable of housing the entire collection.

    This became the Depot Museum Boijmans van Beuningen – simply and aptly known to Rotterdammers as “De Pot” (the Pot).

    Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, the art storage museum housed in a curved mirror glass building. Opened November 2021

    Unlike most museum storage facilities, it is open to the public and I visited it yesterday for the first time in the company of two friends.

    I was most impressed by it. It has a central atrium criss-crossed by stairs connecting the six floors, with some of the collection being displayed in glass cases around the atrium. Information about the objects is revealed via the Depot App used to scan QR codes next to the objects.

    There are passenger lifts and a massive freight lift used to get the pieces to the storage rooms. All the storage rooms are climate controlled, and short tours of small groups are given by the curators.

    There are areas where themed exhibitions are held, and the current programme is to be found on the Depot website.

    The rooms where the curators and conservators work can be viewed via windows in the atrium.

    The Depot is topped off with a roof garden and restaurant.

    When the Depot first opened in 2021, the Architecture critic of the Guardian was a bit sniffy about it, but I found it an interesting place to visit and learn from. Of course, with over 155,000 objects in the museum’s collection, each visit can only make a tiny scratch on the surface.

    The Boijmans van Beuningen museum itself is currently closed until 2030 for major renovations. When it reopens, there will be more space to reveal their collection. If I’m still here, I look forward to that.