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La Chambre Des Reines
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Other Art - Gardens & Cemetaries
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Huis Te Vraag
Let me take you to the most beautiful cemetery in the world which happens to be very close to where I live in Amsterdam South:
HUIS TE VRAAG
If you open the entrance gates you step into another world. I know that always happens when you enter a graveyard, but this one is something you have probably never seen before.
You step into a world of silence and peace a world of unknown and unequaled beauty, a world of the past, a past that never comes back because the cemetery is no longer in use. Above our head is a sign to remind us that we are mortal.
In the Middle Ages HUIS TE VRAAG was an inn, situated along a sandy road between the cities of Haarlem and Amsterdam, where people came in and would ask: "How far do we still have to go before we reach Amsterdam?" In those days you still had quite some time to go. (Nowadays you are only about 10 minutes from the city center). Because this question was repeated so many times by so many people the inn changed it's name into HOUSE TO ASK. In the 18th century the inn became a cotton printing mill but at the end of the century it had turned into a manor with kitchen- and pleasure gardens. In 1890 house and gardens were bought by a rich carpenter, who turned the gardens into a sober protestant cemetery, divided into 16 sections and 4 classes, 4 classes meaning from not very rich to very rich. People were mostly buried in family graves. (4 or 5 family members together in one grave)
In total there are 12.000 people buried. In 1962 the cemetery was FULL, which meant no more space available! Today the cemetary guardian and his wife, Leon en Willemijn van der Heijden, are living in the assembly hall (auditorium). They have spent the last 20 years of their lives creating, maintaining and preserving a paradise on earth. They are both artists -painters- and paid by the municipality of Amsterdam. They turned the assembly hall into a very special timeless place where they both have their own studio.
Timeless beauty, in- and outside........
Leon treats the garden like a piece of art and lets nature have its way....
"Hermientje. May 6, 1940 September 8 1943". "She is
upstairs" (in heaven)
Family graves covered with ivy. "Ivy still mourns when surviving relatives have forgotten the dead"
There are never many people at the same time, so you can walk in silence and enjoy the beauty of the place.
"Rest softly beloved parents"
Something terrible however is threatening this lovely little paradise, because the municipal ground lease will come to an end in 2012. As the cemetary is situated in a very expensive area, close to Amsterdam's office park "The South Axis" on the city's south ring, it's land is worth a fortune.. ..and what happens, when land is worth a fortune..? It catches the greedy eye of developers, who want to buy the land, for building exclusive, expensive apartments and residences ....thus destroying our national heritage without any regret.. People living nearby (like me) are trying to save Huis Te Vraag by donating money and collecting thousands of signatures of other's who want to keep the cemetery the way it is and to pass it on to later generations.
For a video documentary about Huis Te Vraag (in Dutch only)
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