Heerlen

Heerlen is a municipality and a town in the southeastern Netherlands and the second biggest city in the province of Limburg.

In the 19th century it became a centre for the coal mining industry.

A distinctive building in the city centre is the so-called Glaspaleis (Glass Palace), which was put on a list of the 1000 most important buildings of the 20th century by the Union of International Architects in 1999 (after it had been declared a national monument in 1995). It was commissioned in the mid-1930's by fabric merchant Peter Schunck, who was inspired by a similar building in Rouen, France, and built in Bauhaus-style by architect Frits Peutz. The purpose was to create an atmosphere of a market, with all goods exposed in the shop in stead of back in the stock-room, a rather revolutionary idea at the time, as were the shopping windows (this was still a rather provincial town at the time). Also controversial was the idea to undertake a project of this scale during the depression, but Schunck's reply was that that was exactly the right time because labour was cheap and it was a stimulus to the economy. In the early 21st century it was renovated and now houses the public library, a film house, an art house, an architectural centre (Vitruvianum) and a music school.

Population centres

• Heerlen
• Hoensbroek.

External link

• Official Website