Van Gendt Hallen

Van Gendt Hallen stands in Amsterdam’s southwestern former factory grounds, beside waterways and railway lines. Five interconnected brick halls form a broad industrial complex.

Large skylights run along the roofs, while neo-Renaissance details mark the otherwise functional façades. The first three halls, completed in 1898, were designed by Amsterdam architect Dolf van Gendt, while halls four and five followed in 1905 and 1903. A South African order for forty locomotives and four hundred wagons drove the original expansion of the Werkspoor-Stork factory. Locomotives, wagons, turbines and ship engines once occupied these spaces, including the first cast-iron diesel ship engine built here in 1903. Fire damaged halls four and five in 1922, and G.J. Langhout oversaw their reconstruction to the original designs.

Today, national-monument protection guides a redevelopment focused on repair, energy neutrality and new public uses. The connected halls are planned to hold cultural spaces, sports facilities, hospitality, offices and sustainable startups. A central transverse axis is becoming an accessible main street, with preserved pipes and lifting structures revealing the industrial past. The planned Drift Museum will bring large-scale experimental installations by the artist duo Drift into this historic setting. An indoor harbour for electric boats is also planned, alongside food and beverage spaces.