Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography is the oldest photographymuseum in Amsterdam, opened in 1999. Huis Marseille was the first photography museum in the Netherlands when it opened in 1999; the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam, the Fotomuseum Den Haag in The Hague, and FOAM in a nearby building have opened since.[3] The museum is housed in a residence built around 1665 for a French merchant, and contains 13 exhibition spaces and a restored room in Louis XIV style; the building was restored and the museum extended into the adjacent building in 2007–2013.[4][5]
The museum Huis Marseille takes its name from the building in which it is housed. This monumental residence was built around 1665 for the French merchant Isaac Focquier. To its classicist facade Focquier added a stone tablet depicting a map of the French seaport Marseille. Three hundred years later, the original seventeenth-century layout of the house—consisting of a 'front' segment, a courtyard, a 'back' segment and garden—is still largely intact.[10]
In September 2013, the museum was expanded to include the neighboring building at Keizersgracht 399, providing it with a total of fourteen exhibition spaces. In addition, the museum has a photography library and a garden with a garden house.