ARTIS-Micropia turns the microbial world into something visitors can observe: living cultures, microscopes and interactive exhibits connect microbes to bodies, food and ecosystems. It occupies a restored ARTIS landmark with a complex history of science, civic records and wartime resistance.
Quick facts
ARTIS-Micropia opened in 2014 on Artisplein; ARTIS describes it as the world’s first museum devoted to microorganisms.
Micropia’s laboratory cares for more than 40 species of living microbes that visitors can examine under microscopes.
The former Ledenlokalen at Plantage Kerklaan 36–40 housed Amsterdam’s population register from 1941 to 1968; a resistance attack on 27 March 1943 set the building on fire, and the upper floor was lost.
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At ARTIS-Micropia, an invisible world becomes a visitor’s subject. Look through a microscope and a smear of water or a living culture resolves into forms, movement and variation. The museum asks a deceptively large question: how can we understand life when most of it is too small to see? Here, instruments, living specimens and human stories make that question tangible.
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