Museum het Dolhuys

In 2005 the former leper, plague and mad house in Haarlem was transformed into the Museum van de Geest. It invites visitors to contemplate the dividing line between insanity and normality. The museum attempts to explain what insanity means and how society struggles to cope. What one person sees as a disorder, someone else might consider a colourful eccentricity that we should accept at face value.

Titia Bouwmeester developed stories based on interviews with psychiatric patients. These stories serve as a leitmotiv for the layout of the museum. In a solitary confinement cell, a visitor can listen to sounds generated by nocturnal incarceration or with a stethoscope go in search of stories behind a holy water brush, a straitjacket or an electro shock machine.

The permanent exhibition was awarded De Nederlandse Designprijs 2005 in the category Exhibition and Experience Design.