On February 6th the ’Heineken’s Amsterdam’ exhibition at Amsterdam’s City Archives was officially opened under attendance by Mrs Charlene de Carvalho – Heineken and Michel de Carvalho, and their son Alexander de Carvalho. The exhibition kicks off a year-long celebration of the HeinekenCompany’s 150th anniversary.
The exhibition explores how the founder of our Company, Gerard Adriaan Heineken (1841-1893), played an important role in the development of the city of Amsterdam. He was one of the driving forces behind Amsterdam’s Second Golden Age, the city’s economic and cultural renaissance.
In 1864, Gerard Heineken took over the brewery known as De Hooiberg. Amsterdam was then an impoverished city, but several progressive local citizens were doing their best to boost the city’s finances. Heineken too was forward-thinking. In 1868 he built a new brewery on the outskirts of the city, the beginnings of the Heineken brewery on Stadhouderskade. The entrepreneur and innovator Heineken achieved rapid success when he started brewing the ‘Bavarian beer’ we call lager, which was new to these regions.
Gerard Heineken was also concerned with the quality of life in his city. He exerted himself to improve workers’ housing and to promote the arts. The exhibition shows that this founder of what would become a multinational brewery was also one of the founders of modern Amsterdam. Visitors to the exhibition Heineken’s Amsterdam will see that it was partly thanks to Gerard Adriaan Heineken that the lethargic city of Amsterdam acquired a new lease of life.”
The exhibition will run from 7 February to 11 May 2014. For more information: http://stadsarchief.amsterdam.nl/english/exhibitions/index.en.html
