In his Insider Guide to Eindhoven, Andy Mossack discovers the once industrial home of Philips is Now the Creative Hub of The Netherlands.
It was mid-morning and I was enjoying a coffee pitch side in PSV Eindhoven’s stadium. The new Dutch champions have an all-day café within touching distance of the pitch, a real treat for any footie fan, and something you just wouldn’t get in the Premier league.
It’s just one of the many quirks you’ll find in Eindhoven which is enjoying something of a major reboot from its industrial heritage. A storied legacy stretching back to 1891 when the Philips family founded the small light bulb factory that would grow into the global tech giant whose ground-breaking inventions would change all our lives forever.
Even though Philips eventually moved its main operations out of the city to Amsterdam in 1997, the factory spaces it left behind have been taken up by today’s entrepreneurs, still inspiring them to produce ideas, creativity and innovation.
The Philips legacy and investment footprint still remains all over the city in various forms in perpetuity, from PSVs stadium to global tech monolith ASML which has monopolised manufacturing the only machines that can make computer processors.
These are the ingredients which make up Eindhoven’s quirkiness, its laid-back vibe and its genuine embracing of cultural diversity. And the best bit of all? It positively revels in it. That’s why the New Dutch movement was born here. Acknowledging the tulips, clogs, canals, windmills and art culture of Old Dutch’s past achievements and adopting the New Dutch innovation and creativity for the future.
Small wonder Dutch Design Week is a huge event right here every year..
Let’s dive into my Insider Guide to Eindhoven to find your alternative Dutch destination for your next memorable weekend break.
The 15-minute City
Because it is so compact and flat, almost everything in Eindhoven can be seen on foot or by bike within 15 minutes. There are more bikes here than people so designated bike-only lanes are everywhere. Nice, safe and clean. Having said that, there are plenty of buses and cabs too if you need them.
The city is split into distinct districts, with three of them forming the ‘Strijp (Strip) District’. Before you start to panic, it is called the Strip District because it was once the zones or Strijps, where the Philips Factories were sited and only employees were allowed to enter. Each Strijp was alphabetically labelled using the order of letters of the word Strijp, so Strijp-S was the first, Philips’ main manufacturing centre, Strijp-T the second and Strijp-R the third
These empty factories have now been redeveloped or repurposed into residential housing, trendy shops, hip restaurants, designer workshops and creative studios.
Other notable districts are Downtown in the city centre, which has a large, pedestrianised shopping zone, some fascinating historical buildings and plenty of eating options, Kanaalzone, is fast becoming the hippest district in the city and De Bergen a local favourite for cafes and restaurants. But this is a constantly evolving city with an everchanging landscape. No wonder the city’s motto is “forget the expected”.
‘It’s a museum Jim but not as we know it’.
With such a rich history of innovation and design, many of the museums and exhibitions in Eindhoven focus on innovation and invention. But there are a couple that I think warrant a closer look and are easily accessed by foot or bike.
The Philips Museum
An unmissable experience for anyone keen to learn how most of the everyday items we use today came to pass. Set inside what was once the original light bulb factory, the permanent exhibition lets you discover the history of the family founders and how they expanded from manufacturing light bulbs into developing everything from household appliances, televisions, tapes, CDs and videos through to life-changing healthcare products. Other floors are given over to various other interactive installations such as exploring Ai in the brAInpower Exhibition and an insight into the life and work of company founder Gerard Philips.
The entrance fee includes a digital audio guide. There are also former Philips employee volunteers on hand who can conduct paid-for guided group tours.
Next Nature Museum
Set inside an extraordinary building in the shape of a flying saucer spaceship, you’ll find out just why technology is our Next Nature. Set across four floors you can dive to the centre of the earth in an elevator, explore the origins and future of our planet at ‘Once upon a Time.. The Earth’, see installations of how real people decades ago thought our future would look like at ‘Retrofuture’, and try out the digital wellness centre to ensure your yin and yang are properly aligned.
There are also two additional paid for activities to experience: An escape room based inside a giant quantum computer, and a virtual reality experience aboard an interstellar spaceship.
No go to do go!
Given Eindhoven’s working-class history certain rough parts of the city were deemed no go areas. Woensel-West close to Strijp S was indeed one of these. Thanks to Trudo, a forward-thinking social housing developer, this district has been transformed. Just take a stroll around this neighbourhood and you’ll find more than few surprises.
Colourful houses, many with outstanding wall murals, adorn the streets. They are so good you’ll probably see numerous artists sitting down sketching them.
Even though the residents are on social housing, they are incentivised to launch their own businesses through low rent opportunities, so walk along Edisonstraat and you’ll find Woansel WestSide Stores, a street lined with independent quirky shops and cafes. And once they establish a profit, they qualify for more financial incentives to open branches further into the city centre.
Creating the means for self-worth has to be the best way to encourage and motivate people to want to better themselves, and It is visionary work like this which makes Eindhoven such a rewarding place to visit.
You can see further examples of how the council supports low-income families if you stroll the streets around the Philips PSV Eindhoven stadium. It is a delightful neighbourhood with some pretty terraced houses that were once part of Philips’ employee housing.
Vincent’s Country Landscape
Putting aside Eindhoven’s innovation transformation for a moment, there is one notable Old Dutch destination to explore, yet even this has touches of amazing ingenuity and innovation. Just a few kilometres outside the city you’ll find Nuenen Village where Vincent Van Gogh lived in the Vicarage with his parents between 1883 and 1885 and painted in various locations in and around it.
You can visit twenty-four painting locations around the trail route, stand at the very spot he painted each piece and see what he saw. I visited the locations of the Water Mill at Kollen and the Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church at Nuenen and found them both a particularly moving experience.
But the crown jewel of the village is without doubt the extraordinary Van Gogh Village Museum standing directly opposite the old vicarage. Opened in 2023 and run entirely by volunteers, it is a beautiful property and thanks to funding from generous donors including ASML, it’s stacked with state-of-the-art installations.
Everything from ‘Vincent’s Light Lab’ where you can experiment with perspective and light to ‘Oil lamp to OLED – Light on the Potato Eaters’, a temporary exhibition project to see if students from the Technical University of Eindhoven can replicate Vincent’s masterpiece using modern techniques.
Speaking of which, you can even place yourself into Van Gogh’s famous ‘Potato Eaters’ cottage scene and take a selfie of it! The museum also conducts regular guided tours both around the museum and outside along the walking trail.
The museum was a delight to wander through, and its appeal will resonate with everyone from expert to novice in the way it makes serious art fun to play around with.
Are you intrigued enough to visit Eindhoven?
There are so many sides to Eindhoven that it’s impossible to capture them in one article. Then again, it’s fun to leave things to be discovered isn’t it. After all, isn’t that what New Dutch is all about?
Images Visit Eindhoven and Andy Mossack.
Tell me more about this Insider Guide to Eindhoven.
Visit Eindhoven will give you all kinds of additional information about the city.
Getting to Eindhoven
Eurostar to Rotterdam Centraal and then one hour by local train.
Eindhoven Airport is served by many low-cost airlines offering regular flights.
Recommended Hotel
Hotel Mariënhage. Excellent four-star hotel right in the centre. A former monastery and church connected by award-winning architecture.
Recommended Restaurants and Bars
Eetcafe de Verlenging PSV Eindhoven’s pitch side café. Why not take a stadium tour at the same time?
Down Town Gourmet Market 20 different food outlets under one roof. All of them excellent quality. It’s more like a co-operative where all the outlets support each other.
Grand Café A lovely all-day café and part of the workshop, showroom and hotel complex of famous Dutch furniture designer Piet Hein Eek set inside the former Philips ceramics factory in Strijp R. Exploring the huge workshop/showroom is an adventure of discovery on its own.
Kazerne. Is it a hotel, a fashion and design show, a restaurant, or all three? The world of Kazerne is another adventure of discovery. But one thing is guaranteed. The food is excellent in both the all-day café and dining in the evening courtyard during summer months.
Vane Skybar Enjoy a bird’s eye view of Eindhoven from the rooftop bar at the NH Collection Hotel in downtown.
