Paradiso
Paradiso is a concert hall near the Leidseplein, in a building put up in 1880 as the meeting house of a religious society, the Vrije Gemeente. It has been a music venue since 1968, and its main hall holds 1,500 people.
Before you hear it, a guess
What was this building before it became a concert hall?
Hippies broke into an empty church hall in 1967 to have a club of their own. The police threw them out, and five months later the city gave them the building.
This looks like a church, and it was one. It was built between 1879 and 1880 for the Vrije Gemeente, the Free Congregation, a religious society, to a design by the architect Gerlof Salm. Next to it stood a prison and a court.
“This looks like a church, and it was one.”
In 1965 the congregation moved to the Buitenveldert district and sold this building. There was a plan to turn it into a hotel.
It did not come to that. In October 1967 a group of hippies squatted the building to have a club of their own. About fifty of them carried on a ‘love-in’ here that had begun in the Vondelpark. The police soon came in and ended it.
The city took the point. It was looking for places for a new kind of youth culture, and early in 1968 it let this building become one. On 30 March 1968 it opened as the Cosmic Relaxation Center Paradiso. About 1,300 people came to the first show.
Within months Pink Floyd had played here, and the place was being called a pop temple. The list since then is long: David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Prince, Nirvana, U2, Adele.
The main hall holds 1,500 people, and a small one upstairs holds 250.
What to look for
Still a meeting house
Tall round-arched windows, a clock high on the front and brick in two colours: from the street it is still the building of 1880.
The stone porch
At the corner a porch of pale stone with a tall round arch stands out from the brick.
Key facts
- Built
- 1879–1880, to a design by Gerlof Salm
- First use
- Meeting house of the Vrije Gemeente
- Opened as Paradiso
- 30 March 1968
- Main hall
- 1,500 people
- Address
- Weteringschans 6–8, Amsterdam Directions
- Going inside
- Opening times and tickets are on its own site. Official site
Close by
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The dates, names and figures on this page were checked against published references. These are the records for this place. The story is Lookstory’s own telling of them. Last updated October 2026.