Usually, it is the contents of books and records that hold our interest. Yet the outside is often at least as intriguing. Think red ‘top secret’ stickers or art nouveau book bindings. Radboud Erfgoed shows in The Exterior how packaging stimulates your curiosity without you having even turned a single page. This mini-exhibition can be seen in the chest of drawers in the temporary Valkhof Museum from 16 December to 12 May 2025.
An exterior with a story
We open books and files for the contents. It's the inside that counts. Right? But that inside has an outside - and it is sometimes just as fascinating. Letters, covers, book bindings, acid-free cardboard boxes: brand new or with a graphic design, scratched in pen, or labelled ‘highly secret’. It's the first thing you see and - even before you open anything - it tells you a story.
From top secret to contemporary works of art
In the museum's new chest of drawers, Radboud Heritage shows how versatile and intriguing packaging can be. Pull open the drawers and browse through the numerous exteriors that invite to be opened. You will discover archive boxes and envelopes with red ‘top secret’ dots and 17th-century pamphlets for social debates. But also art nouveau book bindings by Jan Toorop for Couperus, richly decorated bonbon box-books with detailed engravings or the contemporary ‘Cockroaches’ by publisher Loopvis.
Cooperation between uu77 and Valkhof Museum
uu77 and Valkhof Museum work together structurally, contributing to the interaction between the arts and science. Through meetings, rapprochement and deeper discussions, the two institutions jointly build a bridge to society. In Radboud Heritage recurring chest of drawers, the university shows museum visitors a different piece of the university's collections each time.
