Astoria (Amsterdam)
Encyclopedia
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, built in 1904-1905 as the headquarters of the Eerste Hollandsche Levensverzekerings Bank insurance company. The building, at the intersection of the Keizersgracht and Leliegracht canals
Canals of Amsterdam
Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands, has been called the "Venice of the North" for its more than one hundred kilometres of canals, about 90 islands and 1,500 bridges. The three main canals, Herengracht, Prinsengracht, and Keizersgracht, dug in the 17th century during the Dutch Golden Age, form...
, served as the international headquarters of Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
for 15 years. In 2001 it gained rijksmonument
Rijksmonument
A rijksmonument is a National Heritage Site of the Netherlands, listed by the agency Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed acting for the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.-History and criteria:...
(national monument) status.
With six floors and a maximum height of 37 metres, the Astoria building was one of the first office towers in the Netherlands. The building was a design by H.H. Baanders and Gerrit van Arkel
Gerrit van Arkel
Gerrit A. van Arkel was a Dutch architect who designed many of Amsterdam's most prominent Jugendstil buildings....
, two architects who designed many buildings in Amsterdam in a sobre version of Jugendstil which later came to be known as Nieuwe Kunst ("New Art").
The Astoria building has a copper-plated roof with a small tower and decorative cast-iron fencing with EHLB (for Eerste Hollandsche Levensverzekerings Bank) in gold lettering. The mosaic on the Keizersgracht facade shows a guardian angel (intended to be symbolic of the insurance company) and two other figures.
In 1968-1969, the building was extended in the same style, after a design by architect C. Wegener Sleeswijk.
Astoria served for 15 years as the international headquarters of Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
, from the founding of Greenpeace International in 1989. The building now houses various companies.
The Astoria building is on the same block as the Anne Frank House
Anne Frank House
The Anne Frank House on Prinsengracht canal in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is a museum dedicated to Jewish wartime diarist Anne Frank, who hid from Nazi persecution with her family and four other people in hidden rooms at the rear of the building...
.