Amsterdam's colourfully lit Hortus Botanicus by Jeroen de Jongh Photography

About "Amsterdam's colourfully lit Hortus Botanicus"

by Jeroen de Jongh Photography

About the artwork

The Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam is a botanical garden. The garden covers about 1.2 ha and contains more than six thousand tropical and indigenous trees and plants.

Amsterdam's 'Hortus Medicus', a garden of medicinal plants serving surgeons and pharmacists in the Reguliershof, on the grounds of the former regulars' monastery near Utrechtsestraat and Keizersgracht, was founded in 1638. Constantijn Huygens and P.C. Hooft interfered to recreate the garden into a hortus.

Because of the plague, doctors were looking for a herb as a cure, but more effective ways of treating diseases among sailors on distant voyages also had the attention of the medics. The first hortus was possibly modelled on the Hortus botanicus Leiden where Carolus Clusius was in charge. As an extra, the hortus was given an arboretum and a wide ditch for growing aquatic plants.

The number of plants increased from 300 to 800 around 1646 under the leadership of manager Johannes Snippendaal. Early on, the Amsterdam hortus had a heated plant greenhouse. Isaac Commelin described the hortus with a collection of two thousand plants. The hortus profited the city government by producing and selling native herbs and by breeding and trading exotics. Through international exchange, useful plants spread all over the world. With the fourth expansion of the city around 1664, the complex was discontinued. The hortus was moved to the Binnengasthuisterrein.

Some of the buildings of the hortus are protected as national monuments. 1) The old greenhouse building, now the Orangery, on Plantage Middenlaan. 2) The entrance gate with entrance gate on Plantage Middenlaan. 3) The monumental palm and fern greenhouse, dating from 1912, on Plantage Parklaan. 4) The former hortulanus residence. 5) The former playhouse, the later seed dome.