Westergasfabriek
Why is it significant?
Walk between the red brick halls with their stepped gables and stone trim, and ask yourself what you would guess these buildings were if nobody told you. A country house? A town hall? A rather grand school? They were built to make gas out of coal, in clouds of soot, around the clock.
Key Facts
| Place | Westergasfabriek |
|---|---|
| Address | Pazzanistraat 37, 1014 DB Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.38660, 4.87100 |
| Part of Walk | Red Brick Dreams: Amsterdam School, Het Schip & the Western Islands |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk between the red brick halls with their stepped gables and stone trim, and ask yourself what you would guess these buildings were if nobody told you. A country house? A town hall? A rather grand school? They were built to make gas out of coal, in clouds of soot, around the clock.
The Westergasfabriek was built in the early 1880s by an English company, the Imperial Continental Gas Association, which supplied gas to cities across Europe. Its architect, Isaac Gosschalk, dressed the whole factory in the style of the Dutch Renaissance, with decorative brick, gables and little towers. Industrial buildings were expected to be ugly, so why bother? Partly pride, partly diplomacy... a works that looked like a manor was easier for the neighbours to swallow.
For decades this place lit Amsterdam. Coal arrived, was baked in retorts until it gave up its gas, and the gas was stored in enormous round holders before flowing through pipes under the streets to lamps, stoves and factories. Look for the great drum-shaped building at the far end: that was a gasholder, and today it is one of the most atmospheric event halls in the city, round as a coliseum.
Then natural gas was discovered in the province of Groningen in 1959, and within a few years coal gas was obsolete. Production here stopped in the 1960s, and the factory left behind a terrible gift: ground saturated with tar and chemical residues. For years nobody quite knew what to do with a beautiful, poisoned site.
The answer was a park. Designed by the American landscape architect Kathryn Gustafson and opened in the early 2000s, it turns the old industrial grid into lawns, water and paths, with the listed buildings reused as cinemas, studios and restaurants. It became a model for turning old industrial land into public space. Now head north-east, under the railway, into the neighbourhood where Amsterdam's most daring housing was born.