Olympic Stadium

The Olympic Stadium was built for the 1928 Olympic Games. The design is by the architect Jan Wils. It has become a rather 'unsportsmanlike' building: not a display of concrete, glass and steel, but a ring of brick, with horizontal notches. In this way it has become a massive building and not a light structure, as propagated by the emerging functionalism of the time. The stadium was almost demolished, but architectural historians managed to prevent that: the stadium is unique in its genre.
The stadium has been thoroughly renovated and is now used by about 30 companies. You can take a separate tour.

On the square in front of the stadium, medalists such as swimmer Johnny Weismuller and boxer Bep van Klaveren walked around. Possibly they saluted at the statue of the saluting athlete that stood here. The statue was made by Gerharda (Gra) Rueb, in honor of Frits van Tuyll van Serooskerke, the founder of the NOC. The gesture that the athlete makes, a raised arm, is nowadays associated exclusively with the Hitler salute, and not with the Roman avé. To protect defenseless souls, the municipality has decided to put the statue inside.

We can still admire another image of an athlete.

Wanderingen