Vondelpark Pavilion

You are standing in front of the Vondelpark Pavilion, a building that has had more lives than most people dare to dream of. Architect W. Hamer designed this Italian Renaissance beauty between 1874 and 1881, and from the very beginning it attracted a colourful crowd of bohemians, artists, and anyone who preferred a good debate over a quiet evening at home.

Then came the Second World War, and things took a considerably less festive turn. The German occupiers seized the building and turned it into the Verpflegungshauptamt, which is a gloriously complicated word for a food supply depot. After liberation in 1945, the building was in a sorry state — all the furniture had vanished, as if someone had organised the world's most thorough moving sale.

Restoration followed, and the pavilion reinvented itself as a gathering spot for politicians, writers, and businesspeople. In 1972, the Dutch Film Museum moved in, eventually taking over the entire building and filling it with cinematic treasures until 2012, when the institute — by then renamed EYE Film Institute Netherlands — relocated to a striking new home across the IJ. The pavilion, naturally, stayed right here, still charming everyone who walks past.