The former Plague House in Leiden - entrance

This building outside the city walls was intended for sufferers of the Plague. It was finished in 1661, but was never used for its purpose. Instead it was used as a military hospital, a prison, a borstal for naughty boys, a institute for the criminally insane and a army museum. After the army museum moved to Delft in 1984 the Plague House became part of the new housing for the natural-history museum. It took till 1998 for the new museum complex to open. Click for more info