Natuurmuseum Fryslân

Natuurmuseum Fryslân is a natural history museum in the centre of Leeuwarden that also works as a concert and event venue. It sits in a monument dating from 1675, a former orphanage, on Schoenmakersperk. The museum is dedicated to the nature of Friesland, and the building around its collections is as much a part of the identity as the exhibits themselves.

The institution has a long and somewhat tangled history. The Frisian Museum of Natural History dates from 1923, and after several moves between locations in the Frisian capital it found its permanent home in this historic building in 1986. Some sources go further back and place the museum's founding in 1675, tied to the age of the orphanage itself, and describe a collection of objects from Frisian nature gathered over more than three centuries.

As a venue, the museum is described as having a capacity of around 600, which makes it a mid sized setting rather than a large hall. The historic interior gives concerts a different character from a standard club or theatre, with music taking place inside a building that was an orphanage before it became a museum. The programme leans toward staged, atmospheric formats. One example from the sources is a Candlelight concert series presenting the music of Coldplay and Imagine Dragons, the kind of event that suits a monumental room better than a conventional stage. For visitors who come for a show, the setting adds a layer that most dedicated music venues cannot offer, since the museum's natural history identity and its seventeenth century architecture remain part of the evening.