De Duif
On Prinsengracht, opposite the idyllic Amstelveld, is a hidden gem: De Duif (‘The Dove’). Between stately buildings on either side, the church’s modest facade conceals a surprisingly grand interior. Once inside, visitors are stunned by the beauty of this impressive venue.
Venue hire
Prestigious and versatile
Famous companies choose this national heritage building for its prestigious appearance. For couples in love, De Duif is a popular wedding venue. While the historic interior provides a grand yet intimate setting for concerts. In short, this is a versatile venue, available for bookings on any day of the week, be it for lectures, symposiums, dinners, weddings, concerts or receptions.
Facilities
Flexible and professional
The church is of course equipped with all the modern facilities needed to make your event a success, from innovative and sustainable heating to excellent audio-visual equipment. In the field of AV and catering, Stadsherstel works together with a number of high-quality partners.
Thanks to a mobile acoustic ceiling, the building is ideal for lectures, concerts and recitals. Moreover, the floating wooden floor makes the space highly suitable for dance performances. The Smits organ (also national heritage) is also available to be played. The Steinway grand piano belonging to the legendary Russian pianist Youri Egorov has found a permanent home in the church. A plenary room and various sub-rooms and breakout rooms are available for conferences and meetings.
Wedding celebrations are unforgettable if you arrive romantically by boat, mooring at the Amstelveld – a prime location with its beautiful Caucasian wingnut trees.
Contact the Stadsherstel team for inspiration and information about the possibilities of this impressive historic building.
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| Floor area 850 m2 |
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Reception capacity 540 people * |
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Concert capacity 450 people * |
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Dinner capacity 250 people * |
The building
The origin of the name ‘De Duif’
The name of this outstanding neoclassical monument, De Duif, means ‘The Dove’. The church owes its name to a predecessor, the 17th-century clandestine Catholic church Het Vrededuifje, ‘The Dove of Peace’, which once stood on Kerkstraat. From 1795 Catholics were again allowed openly to have churches, and Het Vrededuifje was the first in Amsterdam to take advantage of the relaxation of the rules.
The first stone for the current church, designed by the Leiden architect Theo Molkenboer, was laid in April 1857. A dove is depicted on the canopy of the pulpit and above the entrance, where thanks to Stadsherstel it regained its original gold leaf finish in 2019.
Restoring the city
Choose heritage
Due to lack of money and a decline in the number of churchgoers, the church fell into increasing disrepair over the course of the 20th century. The last official mass was in 1974, after which the building was squatted by a group of parishioners campaigning for conservation and restoration. For more than 25 years, the facade had to be shored up because it had come loose. In 1995, the Amsterdams Monumenten Fonds (Amsterdam Monument Fund) and Stadsherstel merged to enable them to buy and restore the building. During the restoration, the various wall paintings emerged from beneath many layers of paint. Today they bear witness to the dedicated work of the restorers.
After an intensive restoration, De Duif reopened in 2002 with a grand cultural weekend of concerts, opera, jazz and dance, heralding the wide range of possibilities that the building now offers. By hiring De Duif you contribute to the maintenance of this historic monument and to the conservation of the city as a whole.
De Duif is really like our home!
We enjoyed our dinner, which, despite the size of the venue, had a very intimate atmosphere, just as we had envisioned.