Former gymnastics building, now youth theatre

The Society for Gymnastics Buildings commissioned the architects J. Ingenohl and K.J. Muller (who was himself a gymnast) to design a new building. German gymnastics buildings served as the model for the design of the floor plan, interior and use. In addition to the main gymnastics hall, the design also included an open area in the back garden for outdoor exercises and various dwellings in the building sections on Marnixstraat and Leidsekade.

The gymnastics building has three street elevations: two tall house elevations with oriels and stepped gables on Marnixstraat and Leidsekade, connected via the lower, elongated facade of the gymnastics hall on Nieuwe Passeerdersstraat. The red brick facades have characteristic Renaissance accents such as rustication in natural stone. In several places, pointed and trefoil arches, derived from Gothic, have been used. The iron wall anchors on the facade on Marnixstraat together form ‘A 1887 O’, the year in which the building was completed. The sloping steps of the stepped gable are covered with roof tiles.
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The original gymnastics hall (39 x 13 metres) is divided into a theatre, a hall for coats and a foyer. The foyer most closely resembles the original situation: the wooden floor even still contains the attachment points for the gymnastics apparatus and the tie rods of the vault terminate in highly unusual dragon heads. In 1978, the Amsterdam youth theatre foundation acquired the building for its theatre centre; since then it has been known as ‘De Krakeling’. The building is one of two hundred government listed buildings recently selected. (ARCAM/OD)