On Tuesday 3 November, Binnenste Buiten , the popular programme of sustainability and lifestyle, opens the door of Herengracht 401, the canal house where artist Gisèle d’Ailly-van Waterschoot van der Gracht lived most of her life.
Presenter Valentijn Carbo, architectural historian at Hendrick de Keyser Monumenten and part of Interieurplatform of Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, guides viewers floor by floor through an artist house where traces of the past are omnipresent.
In the first apartment, Gisèle rented in 1939, he tells the wartime story. Gisèle refused to join the Nazi Kultuurkamer and hid two Jewish art students, one of whom crawled inside a hollowed-out pianola during raids. Valentijn also touches upon the darker side of the history of the house: the poet Wolfgang Frommel (1902-1986) founded the Castrum Peregrini circle of friends from this house; a number of the young people involved later stated that they had suffered harm as a result.
One floor up is the world Gisèle created after acquiring the building in 1956 and the start of the foundation. It is full of antiques and art, painted panels that rotate by remote control into 32 different compositions, and her five-panel painting of the “Fates”. It also holds the traces of her unconventional love story with Arnold Jan d’Ailly, the former mayor of Amsterdam.
Then the journey continues in the attic studio, high above the city center of Amsterdam, during the Second World War, it was nothing more than a desolate, windowless attic used by the people in hiding, Gisèle turned it into her bright workspace. It has a green dragon-tiled bathroom, one can see her paintings, personal objects, and even her brushes are still in place.
Valentijn Carbo ends with how the house continues to evolve. Contemporary artists respond to its rooms, objects and stories, adding new perspectives. A visit brings you into a place where the past remains tangible and where art continues to inspire encounters, imagination and conversations.
“More than seventy years of Gisèle’s life is present in the house, everywhere, in what she produced, collected and kept.”(Valentijn Carbo)
Directed by Nathan Plas, written by Peter Brinkmann.
📺 Tuesday 3 November | 🕙 7:10 PM | NPO 2
Missed it? Watch the rerun on Saturday 7 November at 6:45 PM on NPO 2
