Mission & Strategy

The Zaans Museum is a culture and history museum which profiles itself as an educational and attractive institution for as broad a public as possible. The Zaans Museum is both physically connected with the Zaanse Schans and connected in terms of its exhibits. It sets itself the objective of offering extra depth to tourist visits to the Zaanse Schans.

The Zaans Museum lives up to its mission by:

• managing, safeguarding, and extending the cultural, historical, regional collections of the seventeenth century to the present that represent the Zaan way of life, living, and entrepreneurial spirit and which puts people first.
• an active research and publication programme based on the collection and the stories it tells.
• a programme of exhibitions, activities, and events that extends the reach and interest of the permanent collection.
• using the permanent exhibition of the museum to enhance the authentic experience of Holland for tourists who visit the Zaanse Schans by showing the relationship between the history and identity of the Zaan region and its inhabitants through the centuries.
• creating an open-air museum on different locations on the Zaanse Schans and using living history to create a realistic representation of the lives and working conditions of Zaan residents in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.