Het Blauwe Theehuis: The Flying Saucer of 1937
Why is it significant?
There it is, sitting among the trees like a spaceship that has quietly landed for a cup of tea. A round building, two floors ringed with long horizontal windows, a wide flat roof hovering over a terrace... and all around it, the most old-fashioned park in the city.
Key Facts
| Place | Het Blauwe Theehuis: The Flying Saucer of 1937 |
|---|---|
| Address | Vondelpark 5, 1071 AA Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.35880, 4.87260 |
| Part of Walk | Amsterdam's Green Heart: Vondelpark, Oud-Zuid and the Concertgebouw |
| Generated | Generated |
There it is, sitting among the trees like a spaceship that has quietly landed for a cup of tea. A round building, two floors ringed with long horizontal windows, a wide flat roof hovering over a terrace... and all around it, the most old-fashioned park in the city.
This is Het Blauwe Theehuis, the Blue Tea House, built in 1937 by the architect brothers Herman and Jan Baanders. In the 1930s Dutch architects were split between brick romantics and the radicals of the New Building movement, who believed in concrete, glass, light and pure function. This little tea house is pure New Building, and it is now a protected national monument.
Think about what Amsterdam was going through in 1937. The Depression had hit the city hard, and thousands of men were out of work. The city put many of them to work digging a brand new forest on the southern edge of town, the Amsterdamse Bos, a park of around a thousand hectares, roughly three times the size of Central Park in New York. Amsterdam was learning that green space was not a luxury but a necessity.
And this round shape is not just a style. From the upper terrace you see the park in every direction, the lawns, the water, the paths, as if the building were a lighthouse for people who have nowhere to be. Generations of Amsterdammers have come here after work, on Sunday afternoons, on first dates, and in summer the terrace hums until the light goes.
Look at the trees around you, too. Many of the oldest in the park are planes, chestnuts and oaks, planted when the park was young, and some of them have stood here far longer than the tea house. In a city that fills every square metre, they are the oldest residents of this neighbourhood. Now leave the park by the Van Baerlestraat exit and walk on towards Museumplein, where a gleaming white building has earned itself a very domestic nickname.