This coming 19 April, Efteling theme park is to reopen the revamped Anton Pieck Square as a tribute to its founder, Anton Pieck.

Efteling designers remain inspired by Pieck’s work since its opening in 1952. 

The square’s puppet theatre will also be restored with shows on a daily basis. Meanwhile, the whirligig has been restored and will be expanded to include four musical monkeys, based on an original sketch by Anton Pieck. 

The Efteling Museum will host a temporary exhibition on Anton Pieck. Held on Wednesday 19 April, Anton Pieck’s birthday, the revamped square  is a fitting tribute to a man who has laid the foundations for this fabled Dutch theme park.

Visitors will learn of the work of Anton Pieck such as etchings, woodcuts and ink drawings as well as his graphic work, painting around 100 oil paintings. On display are 26 works of art, including a pencil drawing from his academy days (1909-1912) and detailed woodcuts from the 1920s. Colourful preliminary studies and illustrations from later decades are also shown.

“In the year when substantial construction is underway on two major projects, Danse Macabre and Efteling Grand Hotel, we would like to draw attention to one of the founding fathers of our important cultural heritage,” said Sander de Bruijn, chief designer of the park.

“Together with the Fairytale Forest, the Anton Pieck Square forms the heart of our park. Over the coming weeks it will be redecorated with an eye for detail in the spirit of its original function: a village square where people came to gather. Many visitors will vividly remember the puppet shows of those days. 

“It is valuable to bring that experience back to the present in the same theatre. There is also room for new elements. For example, we have reserved a separate spot for a well that was once drawn by Anton Pieck. This charming well would complete the square.”

The small 1930 woodcut, The Well of Assisi is the connecting artwork in the exhibition at the Efteling Museum. The well that Pieck drew on one of his trips to Italy, he had built in 1984 in the courtyard behind the Anton Pieck Museum. And Efteling will place the well Pieck was so charmed in a fitting place in the renovated Anton Pieck Square.

Images: Efteling