Anne Frankstichting, Amsterdam [NL]

EeStairs + Bierman Henket architecten

The Anne Frank House, Amsterdam, celebrates the still influential life of the Jewish girl who kept a remarkable diary when her family hid from the Nazis in her father’s ex-office building between 1942 and 1944. After being arrested by the Gestapo she was transported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where she died.

Visitor numbers to Anne Frank House, in the same building where she hid, increased dramatically and BiermanHenket Architects were commissioned to transform an adjoining building to create more exhibition space and better visitor facilities.

EeStairs made and installed two staircases, and glass balustrades on the upper floor, and they are deliberately simple and durable in form and materials to maintain the museum’s thoughtful memorial atmosphere. One staircase, with aluminium handrails, rises into a monochromatic space; the other staircase is wider, with attractively grained oak treads and risers across two ‘lanes’ divided by an open metal balustrade with an oak handrail.