Zaanstad City Hall

The new city hall of Zaanstad is linked to the new bridge over the railway and the highway. The short side, where the main entrance and the public functions are housed, runs along the plaza on this bridge. The long side of the city hall, with the offices, is elevated between the railway and the provincial highway, above the bus station.

The city hall was designed as a chain of several large Zaandam houses, in which the features of the local architecture have been applied in a new way. Zaandam houses are famous for their typical façade architecture: the wooden façades are very flat and painted in all sorts of green hues, and the architectural image is reinforced by the use of white cornices, windows and scrolls. The new city hall also features façade architecture in green and white.

Another characteristic of Zaandam houses is their eclecticism, whereby elements are borrowed from all sorts of styles and periods. This was done here as well: just as the Zaandam houses and their façades are often interpretations of world-famous architecture from Italy or France, internationally renowned architects such as Rossi, Venturi, Piano, Pei and Natalini are paraphrased in the façades of the city hall. Typically Zaandam symbols are also incorporated in the city hall: on the short side, the council chamber, situated above the main entrance, has ten different dormer windows, decorated with the arms of the municipalities that were merged to create Zaanstad. Alongside the registry office, two wedding rings hang on either side of the roof gutter, and at the top, in the roof ornament on the tip of the gable, the rings are united. The balcony on which newlyweds can make their appearance features a balustrade of two kissing whales, having presumably swum out of the Zaanstad coat of arms.