De Nieuwe Liefde: Event venue in Oud-West, Amsterdam

★★★★★ 4.6

De Nieuwe Liefde is a house for language in a former wine warehouse on the Da Costakade in Amsterdam's Oud-West, a short walk from De Hallen. People come for poetry, spoken word and literature on stage, from book talks to evenings where actors play literary scenes. The programme treats language in the widest sense, as beauty and as politics. Expect spoken word concerts, journeys through the poetry of distant places, and new voices with perspectives you have not heard before. Between events the team publishes reading tips. The venue has been run in this form since 2019, and it is part of Amerpodia, along with Rode Hoed and Felix Meritis. The building dates from 1904, when L.J. Neumeyer designed it as a wine warehouse with tasting rooms, and it was among the first in the Netherlands in reinforced concrete. The Catholic parish of De Liefde used it as a parish hall from 1932 to 1972, known above all for its cinema, and the Amsterdam theatre school moved in during the 1970s. After a period as Theater De Liefde and a conversion by the practice of Wiel Arets, Queen Beatrix opened De Nieuwe Liefde in 2011 as an initiative of Huub Oosterhuis. It has been a national monument since 2002. The building almost always opens an hour before a programme, and from then on you can get a drink at the bar. The hall itself opens at varying times. Tickets are sold online and at the box office on the day until the programme starts, and if it is sold out a waiting list opens at reception when the doors do. The whole building is card only, and De Nieuwe Liefde has a hearing loop in the hall. Some programmes are streamed live and stay in the online archive. By tram, take 13 or 17 from Amsterdam Centraal to the Bilderdijkstraat stop, about 350 metres away.