Leidseplein: the square of the theatre and the café
The Leidseplein is the square at the edge of old Amsterdam where the city theatre has stood since the 18th century. Two buildings define it: the Stadsschouwburg of 1894, and the American Hotel of around 1900 with its Café Américain.
A yard for carts beside a gate
The square began as the edge of town. When the city’s theatre on the Keizersgracht burned in 1772, Amsterdam built its replacement out here, on what was then little more than a yard for carts beside the city gate. The new theatre was made of wood, and people called it the houten kast, the wooden cupboard.
It lasted until February 1890, when a smouldering firecracker from fireworks on the square set it alight. Nobody died, but the archive, the library, the sets and the costumes were lost.
The theatre
The Stadsschouwburg that stands here now went up between 1892 and 1894, in brick and stone this time. It was built to keep people apart: the wealthy arrived by carriage and stepped out under the big balcony at the front, while people with the cheapest tickets went in by doors on the corners and climbed their own stairs.
In 1969 young theatre makers threw tomatoes at its stage, demanding something new. The protest is still known as the Aktie Tomaat. Since 2018 the theatre and its resident company have been one organisation, Internationaal Theater Amsterdam.
The hotel and its café
Across the square is the building Amsterdam simply calls the Americain. The first American Hotel on this corner was finished in the early 1880s and lasted about twenty years; the present one, by the architect Willem Kromhout, replaced it around 1900.
The part people know best is the Café Américain on the ground floor, which dates from 1902. It has an Art Nouveau interior with stained glass and a reading table said to be the oldest in Amsterdam. The hotel’s official name has changed with its owners. The café has kept its own.
Where to see it
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