De Kromhouthal

The bridge cranes that still run through the hall are not decoration: on this bank of the IJ, marine engines were assembled. De Kromhouthal takes its name from the kromhout, the curved wood with which the ’t Kromhout shipyard of the Goedkoop family built sailboats in 18th-century Amsterdam. In 1908, the engine division crossed the water to what is now De Overkant. The front of the hall facing the IJ was born in 1925 and expanded in 1930. STORK, on Ketelstraat, absorbed that division in 1966, and the site reached the scale that still defines the venue.

From diesel engine to event floor

When the housing corporation Eigen Haard bought the land in 2009, the task was to reactivate Amsterdam North without erasing the industrial character. The conversion preserved the steel, skylights, and open floor plan. In 2012, the hall opened as an event location. The isotype still marks 1908, but the current public identity is that of a flexible venue of over 5,000 m², with a central hall of 3,588 m², a ceiling of about fifteen meters, and a published capacity of 2,300 people.

An industrial box to set up the dance floor

The floor is darkened with electric blinds, partitioned with cloths hanging from the cranes, and admits a stage, LED walls, and whatever sound system each producer brings: there is no fixed house PA. A terrace on the IJ, patio, private pier, and parking at the door complete a ground-level venue, designed to change scale in a few hours. That condition as a technical warehouse is exactly what has made it, every October, one of the large halls of the Amsterdam Dance Event.

ADE: large-format club without a resident brand

STRAF_WERK has made the hall its ADE headquarters, with house and techno nights that stretch toward dawn. elrow has deployed its immersive productions here. In 2014, it already hosted the ADE special for Goldfish and Bakermat. It is not a nightclub with a weekly calendar or a party brand: it is the physical container. The rest of the year, the same hall hosts the Affordable Art Fair —in Amsterdam since 2013—, Emerce E-day, Dance4Life, presentations by Google, Mercedes, or Booking.com, and in 2025 the Formula 1 Exhibition.

North of the IJ, open calendar

The venue is rented according to programming, from congress to party. The usual permit covers until 1:00 AM from Sunday to Thursday and until 3:00 AM on Fridays and Saturdays, with possible extensions: that is why ADE nights can continue until six. In De Overkant, between neighboring warehouses and the water, De Kromhouthal remains above all that: a converted factory that, when the lights go down, functions as a club.