The Municipality of Rotterdam has announced that engineering firm BAM Bouw en Techniek (BAM) has been awarded the contract for the construction of the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen.

Designed by Dutch architects MVRDV, the building will store the art collection of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, opening it up for public use, and will provide storage facilities for private art collectors.

The founders of MVRDV – Winy Maas, Nathalie de Vries and Jacob Van Rijs – have previously told CLAD that turning storage depots into attractions in their own right offers a “new model” for museums wishing to take full advantage of their often vast cultural collections by taking visitors “behind the scenes.”

Located within the OMA-designed Museumpark in Rotterdam, Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, alternatively known as Collectiegebouw, will be a 14,000sq m (150,000sq ft) mirrored cylindrical building. An ascending route will lead visitors around a central atrium, with walls lined with the stored art works.

The journey will end on the roof, home to a restaurant, exhibition space, viewing deck and a sculpture garden featuring the trees removed to make way for the building. It will also be the new location for the Futuro, the round, prefabricated ufo-shaped house of Finnish architect Matti Suuronen.

Describing the design concept for the building, Maas told CLAD: “We proposed a building that combines introversion with extroversion. Why? Because it is technically highly protective; there are zillions of euros worth of art stored there. How to combine that with an attempt to make it more extrovert as a public facility in a park?

“We suggested having a public programme on the ground floor, a public programme on the roof, and in the middle the hermetic art sealed in the central void.”

The attraction is expected to be completed in 2019.