Utrecht: City Centre

Utrecht was found­ed by the Romans on the banks of the Old Rhine. Being the cen­tre of Dutch Catholi­cism since the 7th cen­tu­ry, the city has an unusu­al lay­out and a beau­ti­ful old town. In recent years, many new build­ings have been implant­ed in the old city, mak­ing Utrecht a dynam­ic mix.

 

The con­struc­tion of shop­ping mall Hoog-Cathar­i­jne in the 1970s meant a large-scale renew­al of the north­ern city cen­tre, while south of Dom­plein the small scale was preserved.

On this tour, we vis­it the old town of Utrecht, includ­ing some new devel­op­ments. Find out about the archi­tec­tur­al lay­out of canal hous­es, hid­den alley­ways and court­yards, and archi­tec­ture through the ages in this young and vibrant city.

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Programme: Utrecht City Centre

  •  Expla­na­tions about the his­to­ry and urban lay­out of Utrecht

  • Utrecht Cen­tral Sta­tion and shop­ping mall Hoog Catharijne
  • Pieterskerk­hof with town­house (Mart van Schi­jn­del, 1995)
  • Canal house Kromme Nieuwe­gracht (Slui­jmer en van Leeuwen, 2002)
  • Con­cert hall Tivo­liVre­den­burg (Her­man Hertzberg­er, 1979 / Jo Coenen, Thi­js Assel­bergs, NL Archi­tects, 2014)
  • Post Utrecht (Joseph Crouwel, 1918 / Rijn­boutt, ZECC, 2020)
  • House Mod­ernes (Dirk Brouw­er, 1939 / ZZDP, 2019)
  • Oude­gracht, main canal with mer­chant hous­es and “wer­fkelder” basements
  • Zocher­park on the old city for­ti­fi­ca­tion (J.R. Zocher, 1830)
  • Stadss­chouw­burg the­ater, W.M. Dudok (1941) Inte­ri­or vis­it of the pub­li­cal­ly acces­si­ble areas