Vondelpark
The Vondelpark is Amsterdam’s best-known park: 47 hectares of lawns, ponds and winding paths, opened in 1865 and laid out by the garden architects Jan David Zocher and his son Louis Paul. It is named after the 17th-century poet Joost van den Vondel, whose statue stands in it.
Before you hear it, a guess
Why has the park sunk below the streets around it?
This park was not made by the city. A group of citizens bought a strip of wet meadow in 1864, turned it into a park, and their association owned it for almost ninety years.
In 1864 this was grassland and marsh at the edge of Amsterdam. A group of citizens led by Christiaan Pieter van Eeghen set up an association to make a park for riding and walking, and bought a long strip of it. They gave the design to Jan David Zocher and his son Louis Paul, garden architects from Haarlem. The first part opened on 15 June 1865. It was simply called the Nieuwe Park, the New Park.
The Zochers worked in the English landscape style. The paths wind, the ponds bend, the trees stand in loose groups. The idea is that you feel you are walking in the countryside and not in a city.
The name came two years later, and it came from a statue. The architect Pierre Cuypers, who lived in the street beside the park, had campaigned for a monument to Joost van den Vondel, the Dutch poet and playwright of the 17th century. It was placed here in October 1867, on a pedestal that Cuypers designed. People began to call the place Vondel’s park, and in 1880 that became its official name.
The last part was laid out in 1876 and 1877, which brought the park to its present size. All that time it stayed private property. In the end the association could no longer pay for the upkeep, and in 1953 it gave the park to the city.
The park lies on peat. It has to be drained to stay dry, and as peat dries it shrinks, so the park has sunk below the streets around it. Between 1999 and 2010 it was renovated from end to end, with new drains laid in the ground.
What to look for
Vondel on his chair
The bronze poet sits with a quill in his right hand and an open book in his left. The statue was designed by Louis Royer. The pedestal is by Pierre Cuypers, the architect of the Rijksmuseum.
The parakeets
Listen for screeching overhead. The bright green birds are rose-ringed parakeets, and they have lived wild in the park since the 1970s.
Paths that curve
Look at how the paths and the ponds bend. That is the English landscape style: the park was designed to look as if nature had made it.
The Blue Tea House
In the park stands a round modernist pavilion that opened in 1937, the Blauwe Theehuis.
Key facts
- Opened
- 15 June 1865, as the Nieuwe Park
- Designers
- Jan David Zocher and his son Louis Paul Zocher
- Size
- 47 hectares
- Vondel statue
- Placed on 18 October 1867
- Given to the city
- 1953
- National monument since
- 1996
- Address
- Between the Stadhouderskade and the Amstelveenseweg, Amsterdam Directions
The bigger picture
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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.