Westerpark, Amsterdam

Westerpark is a public urban park in Amsterdam, where open polder landscape meets the surviving buildings of the former Westergasfabriek. The park began taking shape in 1890, after an earlier municipal park in this area had disappeared during the construction of waterways and rail lines. Its original design came from landscape architect Leonard Springer, though the gasworks reduced the planned area to 5.63 hectares.

The industrial buildings now give the park its most distinctive character. Look at the brick façades, tall windows, and substantial halls: these structures once belonged to a gasworks built in 1883, where coal was turned into town gas for street lighting and later for cooking. Production ended in 1967, leaving the soil heavily contaminated with tar and cyanides.

Rather than remove every historic structure, the city covered the polluted ground with a new layer of soil and expanded the park across it. The restored buildings now accommodate cafés, offices, a cinema, markets, festivals, exhibitions, and other cultural events. This is a park shaped by industrial remains: the open landscape and the preserved factory halls share the same setting.