The Nederlands Fotomuseum has moved to a brand-new location: Pakhuis Santos, situated just a few hundred meters from its former site. This imposing building, evocative of Rotterdam’s industrious past, was originally a coffee warehouse. Built around 1901, Pakhuis Santos began its existence as a storage facility for coffee shipped from the Brazilian port city of Santos, hence its name. In 2000, it was designated a national monument. Today, The Fotomuseum, after receiving a generous gift of €38 million, purchased and fully renovated the building. It recently opened in its new home, housing photography exhibitions across three of its six storeys. One of these floors features the Eregallerie(Gallery of Honour), which I first visited on 11 June 2021, just after the long Covid blackout. What I wrote then still stands. Yet a second visit, now within a renewed display, allowed me to revisit some of my former coups de cœur and to discover new ones along the way. I find myself returning again and again to the same photographs, only to realise once back home that I had already taken pictures of them before. This time, five years later, I repeated only one photograph. The others had not caught my attention during my previous visit. And yet, Cas Oorthuys and Ed van der Elsken remain firmly established as heroes in my personal gallery of honour. I also took particular pleasure in the very early photographs, thoughtfully presented, which provide a rich context for the history of Dutch photography.
