Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has been named European Museum of the Year by the European museum forum, which is part of the Council of Europe.

The award is made to a museum which has undergone extensive renovations or has opened within the previous two years. The Rijksmuseum re-opened in 2013 after an overhaul lasting almost 10 years.

‘The renewed Rijksmuseum offers impressive multilingual guidance to its visitors, witty and thought-provoking interventions in the galleries, and a state-of-the-art website for virtual visitors,’ the forum says on its website.

In particular, the organisation praised the museum’s aim to ‘reach every child in the Netherlands by the age of twelve’.

The open air museum in Arnhem took the same prize in 2005.