Living in Stadionbuurt, Amsterdam

The Stadionbuurt is in the same wijk as the Apollobuurt, Oud-Zuid, and was built to the same plan in the same decade, but the housing tells a completely different story. Here more than half the homes belong to housing associations, only about one in eight is owner-occupied, and more than eight in ten are under eighty square metres. Around ten thousand people live in a hundred and nine hectares of brick. If you want the architecture of Amsterdam Zuid at a price a normal salary can carry, this is where you look.

What it is

The buurt was laid out in the 1920s and 1930s as a municipal answer to the housing shortage, on the western flank of Berlage's Plan Zuid, and it takes its name from a stadium that no longer exists: Harry Elte's national stadium, which stood from 1914 to 1929. What replaced it is the building everyone knows, the Olympic Stadium designed by Jan Wils for the 1928 Games, still standing and still in use, with two Citroen buildings by the same architect nearby. Its edges are water and traffic: the Noorder and Zuider Amstelkanaal, the Apollolaan and Olympiaplein to the east, the Parnassusweg, the Amstelveenseweg and the A10 ring to the south and west. Most of the housing is small interwar flats in closed blocks, with a large newer complex, the Olympisch Kwartier, added on the stadium side in the 2000s.

Who lives here

A more ordinary population than the neighbouring Apollobuurt, and a much larger renting one. Housing association tenants of long standing, families in small flats, students and young workers in the private minority, and a steady thread of sporty Amsterdammers drawn by the fields and clubs around the stadium and Olympiaplein. Two things follow for anyone looking for a room. First, a large share of the flats are allocated through waiting lists at rents capped by the national points system, so they never appear on the open market. Second, the private flats that do appear are small, which means shared flats here tend to be two or three people rather than five.

What it's like during the day

Quiet, green at the edges and unusually sporty. Olympiaplein is a large square given over to playing fields, and the whole southern strip of the buurt is sports grounds, water and the parkland along the canals. The streets themselves are residential and calm, with local shops rather than destination ones. It is a comfortable place to work from home and a slightly featureless one to wander in: the interest is at the edges, in the stadium, the canals, and the Schinkel water to the west.

What it's like in the evening

Quiet. There is no bar strip and no evening crowd; a handful of cafes and restaurants near Olympiaplein and the stadium cover a local dinner and not much more. Events at the stadium bring people in and take them away again. For a night out the Vondelpark side of Oud-West is six to eight minutes by bike and De Pijp about fifteen, and most residents treat that as normal. If you need noise on your doorstep, this is not the buurt.

Getting around

Better connected than it looks on a map. Metro station Amstelveenseweg, on lines 50 and 51, sits at the southern edge, five to seven minutes by bike, and Station Zuid with its intercity and Schiphol trains is five or six. Tram 24 runs right through the buurt from Centraal, with stops at Olympiaweg and Olympisch Stadion, and tram 2 runs along the Amstelveenseweg and Zeilstraat on the north-western side, also to Centraal. By bike the Vondelpark is six to eight minutes, the Dam seventeen to twenty-two. The one genuine drawback is the A10 ring and the water on the southern and western edges: they cut the buurt off from what lies beyond, so your route out is not always the direct one.

Eating and shopping

Local rather than lavish. There is a supermarket at Olympiaplein and daily shops along the main streets, with a scattering of cafes, but nothing that would count as a shopping destination. The bigger choice is a short ride away: the Beethovenstraat in the Apollobuurt for delicatessens, the Amstelveenseweg north of the buurt for restaurants, and De Pijp for the Albert Cuypmarkt. For a large weekly shop most people ride rather than walk.

When NOT to pick it

If you want atmosphere, nightlife or a large flat, the Stadionbuurt will disappoint on all three: the flats are genuinely small, the streets are quiet to the point of dull, and much of the best housing is locked in the social sector. It is the wrong choice if you want to walk to a bar or need space to spread out, and De Pijp or Oud-West would suit you better. It is the right choice if you want a solid interwar flat in Amsterdam Zuid at a price the Apollobuurt would never offer, with a metro station, a railway station and the Vondelpark all within ten minutes by bike, and if a sports field and a canal matter more to you than a terrace.