For the renovation of this listed prison campus in Veenhuizen, the architects’ guiding principle was to recreate the historic mise-en-scène. The concept not only involved opening the classicist building complex – located 170 km north of Amsterdam and long isolated from the outside world – to the public, but also telling of the history of its architectural elements. Planned in the early nineteenth century as a reformatory for the “uncultivated underclass” to be visited of one’s own accord, it soon evolved into a penal colony whose occupants were under lock and key. It was not until recent years, when the conversion of some of its parts was already under way, that its historic significance as ideal city came to light.