Description
Culture Park Westergasfabriek is a wonderful example of redeveloping an industrial area and ‘give it back’ to the city. The park is partly erected on the terrain of a former gasworks. It became a beautiful modern city park with historic factory buildings, offering entertainment, drinks and food in various forms.
Culture Park Westergasfabriek (also referred to as Westerpark (Western Park)) is divided into an old and a new part. The old park has beautiful romantic trees, meadows and wandering footpaths. The new park has wide open spaces, straight lines, water for kids to play in in Summer, a swamp and a small animal farm (kinderboerderij). All the historic buildings are in the new part of the Westerpark. It is many (ten?) times bigger than the old park and most activities are concentrated in this part of the park. The many buildings house a cinema, some intimate music venues, restaurants and bars. Culture Park Westergasfabriek frequently hosts festivals and events, all year round. Westergasfabriek wants to become a completely green and sustainable park.
A short summary of things to do and see on the grounds of Westergasfabriek
Het Ketelhuis is a cinema for the better art house film. Pacific Parc cafe and restaurant has a large terrace and every evening a DJ plays an interesting mix of music and there are frequent live gigs. De Bakkerswinkel (the Bakker’s Shop) is housed in the Regulateurshuis, just inside the main entrance to the Westergasfabriek. De Bakkerswinkel mostly uses locally and organic products. Enjoy live jazz and jazz related music, food and drinks in a warm, cosmopolitan atmosphere in the North Sea Jazz Club. Raïnaraï is an Algerian restaurant with delicious North-African food and a modern North-African atmosphere.
Het WestergasTerras is a beautiful place in the green environment of Westerpark. With a view on the famous Gashouder and the charming water gardens, the terrace is located in the western part of the park. In winters the WestergasTerras is indoor, with a cosy fireplace and comfortable sofa’s. Have a drink or dinner in the restaurant before heading to the first level, where nightclub WesterUnie is located. But there are many more activities in Westergasfabriek that you can do, see or attend.
The Park is freely accessible all day. Westergasfabriek is the first park in the Netherlands that has free WiFi in most buildings and a large part of the surrounding park.
A city park that wants to become 100% green
Before the reopening in 2003, Westergasfabriek was a polluted site that was cleaned up and turned into a park. Westergasfabriek is now keen to become a completely ‘green’ and sustainable park. Besides making the historical buildings more sustainable, they also try to provide opportunities for their partners to demonstrate sustainable developments in the fields of energy, waste, food and technology to all visitors to the park.
Therefore they also have a strict policy on what events they host in the park.
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