Vondelpark
The Vondelpark is the most famous and second largest park in the Dutch capital, Amsterdam .
The park covers around 47 hectares and is located in the Amsterdam Oud-Zuid district , on the border with the Oud-West district . It stretches from the Stadhouderskade to the Amstelveenseweg. It is named after the Dutch playwright Joost van den Vondel , whose monument is in the park. The park, which also houses an open-air stage , a playground, a number of cafes and restaurants and a tea house , is frequented by around 10 million visitors every year. It has been a listed building ( Rijksmonument ) since 1996 .
history
A private initiative by people around CP van Eeghen, then President of the Netherlands National Bank, bought the area in 1864 and commissioned Jan David Zocher and his son Louis David to design a park in the style of an English landscape garden . It was opened in 1865 as Nieuwe Park ("New Park"). When the monument to Joost van den Vondel was erected in 1867 , the name Vondelpark, as the park has been officially called since 1880, became established.
By 1953 he was in the private property of the Vereniging van een dead Aanleg Rij s convertible park ( "Association for the construction of a park for running and walking"). As the association was no longer able to raise the maintenance costs, it donated the area to the municipality of Amsterdam.
From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, the park was an important meeting place and venue for the hippie and provo movement .
"Vondelpark Openluchttheater"
In the open-air theater in Vondelpark, music, dance, cabaret, film and theater performances have been given in the summer months of June, July and August since 1974. There are three stages and access to the events is free.
Vondelparkpaviljoen
The Vondelparkpaviljoen is a 1874 to 1881 designed by Willem Hamer jr. A neo-renaissance building that stands in Vondelpark at the lowest point in Amsterdam. Initially, art exhibitions were organized in the premises and it became a popular meeting place for the bohemians of the late 19th century.
In the 1950s it served as the location of the Holland Festival . Since 1972 it has housed the Nederlands Filmmuseum . It had two movie theaters and received more than 150,000 visitors annually. A café-restaurant is located in the basement.
In 1991 the building was extensively restored. The film museum moved to a new futuristic building on the IJ in April 2012 , the Vondelparkpaviljoen is currently unused.
Todays use
The municipality of Amsterdam has been carrying out a large-scale renovation and improvement of the park since 1999, which should be finished in 2015. Above all, the drainage of this original marshland , which lies below sea level, is being renewed . After the first residential buildings were built around the park at the beginning of the 20th century, they had to be built around one meter higher. This resulted in great difficulties in draining the Vondelpark, which is why an attempt is now being made to remedy this problem with a new drainage system.
Environment map
Web links
- Website of the Vondelpark Entrepreneurs Association (Dutch)
- Website of the Association of Friends of the Vondelpark (Dutch)
- Website with the event schedule of the open air theater
Coordinates: 52 ° 21 ′ 25 ″ N , 4 ° 52 ′ 0 ″ E