Promoting healing

Hortus Botanicus Image Archive

Imke van Hellemondt: "The botanical garden was completed in 1967, along with a native plant garden and a hospital garden, designed by Chris Broerse, the head of Amstelveen's parks department. The three gardens were connected by paths and bridges that allowed patients to not only admire the gardens but also walk through them, promoting their recovery. The paths were paved to make them wheelchair accessible. The area was also accessible to other visitors.

The botanical garden and hospital garden have since been fully developed. Part of the botanical garden has recently been cut off by the underground entrance to the new hospital building 'Adore', which is under construction."

"In the photo, the greenery is about ten years old. The hospital garden cannot be seen due to the vegetation of the native plant garden; the botanical garden is on the left, just out of view. Many people were sitting and lying in the wide, grassy area. The tall trees camouflage the new building of the hospital."

Imke van Hellemondt is an architectural historian at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research focuses on the relationship between nature and culture in Dutch landscape architecture from the nineteenth century onwards, in particular ecological design in the 1960s and 1970s.

magazine for humanities alumni december 2023