The Vondelstraat riots

On the corner in front of you, Vondelstraat 72, stood the building where the squatters' movement and the city collided head-on in 1980. It is an ordinary corner house in a respectable street now, which makes the images of what happened here stranger still.

The building had been empty for months and was squatted on 23 February, after which the police cleared it the same night. On Friday 29 February the squatters came back, using a demonstration in the city centre as a distraction. The riot police tried to retake the house at once and had to withdraw. After that the street closed itself off: barricades of paving stones, fencing and burnt-out builders' huts, and the squatters declared the block the Vondel Free State.

On Monday morning, 3 March, at around seven, heavy army vehicles drove in to push the barricades aside. For the first time since the war there was military equipment on the streets of Amsterdam, and those pictures travelled the country. Dozens were injured and the house itself stayed squatted, because the operation was about the street rather than the building.

Two months later, at the inauguration of Queen Beatrix, it broke out all over again.

Carry on to the bridge over the park and take the steps down on your right, towards the door under the bridge deck.