LFN Grants Its 2021 Award to the Friends of Amsterdam Inner City Association

The Association of Friends of the Amsterdam Inner City

The Association of Friends of the Amsterdam Inner City, “Vereniging Vrienden van de Amsterdamse Binnenstad” (VVAB) in Dutch was founded in 1975 by concerned citizens of Amsterdam. Since then, they have initiated many initiatives including legal proceedings to preserve the old city structure and its typical houses. Partly thanks to them, a turnaround was achieved in thinking about the preservation of the inner city, against the trend of demolition and large-scale new construction.

The VVAB is there for everyone with a soft spot for the inner city of Amsterdam. Amsterdam’s ring of canals is unique because of its architecture and physical appearance of the great economic, political and cultural development that Amsterdam went through in the Golden Age. The canal belt in Amsterdam was a project for a new “port city”, built in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In order to expand the city area, reclamation of the marshland was necessary. For this purpose a network of canals was constructed – in concentric arcs – to the west and south of the historic old town and the medieval harbor. Along the canals are numerous monuments and houses with their characteristic gables. This model of urban expansion – the largest and most cohesive of its time – served as a reference throughout the world until the 19th century. The inner city of Amsterdam has eight thousand monuments, making it one of the most intact and largest historic inner cities in the world.

The VVAB makes a strong case for the preservation of the historic buildings, the restoration of the balance between living, working and recreation and the dissemination of knowledge about the Amsterdam city centre. The VVAB is a very active association and has activities not only for the preservation of the inner city, but also to appreciate it.

UNESCO listed Amsterdam’s 17th-century ring of canals on it UNESCO World Heritage