Palmenkas (Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam)

Amsterdam's Hortus Botanicus dates back to 1638, when the city created a medicinal garden, the Hortus Medicus. Around the turn of the twentieth century it was directed by the botanist Hugo de Vries, in post from 1885 to 1918, who earned the garden international standing. When De Vries considered leaving Amsterdam for New York, the city met several of his demands, including a new house for palms and ferns; a laboratory bearing his name followed in 1915.

The Palm House was built in 1911–1912 for the municipal Public Works department. The Hortus attributes it to the architect Johan Melchior van der Mey (1878–1949), a leading figure of the Amsterdam School, while the national monuments register is more cautious, describing the design as 'probably' his. According to one local source, the new house replaced a wooden structure that had grown too low for the palms.

The building is protected as a national monument (rijksmonument). In 1987 the whole garden came close to closing when the University of Amsterdam withdrew its funding, but public support saved it. In June 2012 the house's centenary was marked by a series of classical concerts held among the palms.

The Palm House is L-shaped, built of iron, dark-brown brick and glass at the southern corner of the garden, beside the Hortus pond. At its heart is a circular hall covered by a pyramidal roof of iron and glass, crowned by a lantern and a weathervane. The roof is carried on twelve riveted frames arranged like the spokes of a wheel.

Two wings extend from this rotunda: to the north-west, a four-bay hall that formed the original palm house, and to the north-east, a three-bay hall that housed the ferns. The brick pilasters are enlivened with decorative brickwork and mouldings in the expressionist spirit of the Amsterdam School, set against an industrial vocabulary of steel and glass. Inside, an iron spiral staircase climbs to a gallery, and the original sliding blinds used for shading can still be seen. The large windows were later re-divided into 36 panes.

The house holds the Hortus's palms and cycads, around a hundred taxa according to the monuments register. Its centrepiece is an Eastern Cape giant cycad, Encephalartos altensteinii, whose age the garden estimates at 300 or 350 years; it ranks among the oldest known pot plants and never leaves the house. Nearby grows Encephalartos woodii, extinct in the wild and known in cultivation only as male plants.

Several trees are said to have been planted by Hugo de Vries himself: a cinnamon tree (Cinnamomum burmannii) and two figs, Ficus macrophylla and Ficus lyrata. A Philodendron bipinnatifidum with long aerial roots is another eye-catcher. In summer most of the potted plants are moved outdoors, so the house is at its fullest in winter.

The Hortus lies in the Plantage district east of the historic centre, on Plantage Middenlaan, and the Palm House occupies its southern corner beside the pond. It is seen as part of a circuit that also takes in the Three Climates Greenhouse, the Butterfly House and the carnivorous-plant collection, together with the outdoor sections, among them the medicinal garden, the semicircle and the dunes and pond.

Winter is the best time to see the palms, cycads and potted plants gathered under the dome, since most of the potted plants spend the summer outdoors. A visit combines easily with Artis Zoo and the Dutch Resistance Museum, both close by.