Fotomuseum Hilversum will open its doors from December 2, 2025.

The new name and the new identity—designed by the agency LMNOP—signify what the museum has long been: a place where photography takes the lead. With this step, the museum aims to attract more visitors. This is not a change of course, but a clear positioning. The museum focuses on contemporary photography and offers a program closely connected to the societal debate surrounding visual culture.

“In today’s society, we are constantly inundated with images. At Fotomuseum Hilversum, you learn more about the role of photography today,” says director Fleur van Muiswinkel. “What is the value of photography in a time when AI plays an increasingly significant role? Our museum offers calm, new perspectives, and moments of wonder.”

With an emphasis on news photography, documentary visual stories, and contemporary visual culture, the museum offers something increasingly rare in our fast-moving visual culture: a chance to slow down, context, and space to really look. We focus on exhibitions by renowned photographers, mid-career creators, and emerging talent. Fotomuseum Hilversum shows how images are created, circulate, gain meaning, and why that matters. Together with long-term partners such as Stichting Zilveren Camera and World Press Photo, the museum emphasizes the importance of photojournalism, press freedom, and dialogue to deepen our understanding of the world and the people around us.

With this focus, the museum fulfils a unique role in the Dutch museum landscape: it connects the urgency of news and documentary photography with the imagination of photographers and their audiences. Located in the heart of the Netherlands, the museum offers an accessible place where visitors can take the time to engage with layered and topical visual stories.

Fotomuseum Hilversum builds on the city’s rich media history. In an environment where images are created and shared daily, the museum aims to be a place where both professionals and the general public come together. In line with this, the museum collaborates with media partner Het Perfecte Plaatje to bring photography to a large and diverse audience.

Under the motto Look, Meet, Tell, the museum invites visitors to experience photography actively. Look stands for attentive, slowed-down observation; Meet for bringing visitors, creators, and stories together; and Tell for sharing and understanding the meaning of images.

The museum is an open house for photography and the public, located in the heart of the media city Hilversum. It features five exhibition halls with a combined 500 square meters of exhibition space, a museum café, and a shop with photo books and small editions.

The new logo was designed by the multidisciplinary design agency LMNOP. They drew inspiration from the 19th-century ceiling paintings in the historic part of the museum. The ceiling features a compass rose referencing the surrounding municipalities. This connection to the world around it—just as in the time of the former town hall—remains central to the museum’s mission today.