Schiller has been an Art Deco café for more than a century, linked to Amsterdam's fashion and history. In the years between the two world wars it was a landmark for Dutch and foreign celebrities who came and went in both the hotel and the restaurant. The Schiller bar was also a favorite haunt of Amsterdam's chicest and the meeting place par excellence for artists and performers. The paintings, artwork, glass mosaic and Art Deco interior of the Schiller cafe still remind visitors of those famous years.
Café Schiller History
In 1912, Frits Schiller, together with his brother Hein and his sister Elsa, had a new "cosmopolitan" hotel built on Rembrandtplein with a restaurant and brewery, which opened on August 6, 1913. It quickly became an artistic and intellectual center of Amsterdam.
In 1921 or 1922, a hotel bar with its own entrance was built in the adjacent building at number 24A. The Art Deco interior was probably added in 1933, designed by M.J.E. Lippits, in collaboration with Frits Schiller, who was a painter as well as a hotelier.
Between the twenties and thirties, the Schiller Bar was frequented by celebrities and artists such as cabaret artists Jean-Louis Pisuisse and Louis Davids, actors Nap and Fien de la Mar, writer Herman Heijermans and painters George Breitner and Joop Sjollema. In 1948, the latter created a stained glass mosaic depicting musical theater figures, which has occupied a central place in the café ever since.
During World War II, Bar Schiller remained open, but the passage to the hotel was closed, as the Germans had stationed military personnel there. Frits Schiller and his family moved in above the bar. After a complete renovation of the hotel around 1950, the connection to the bar was restored.
After Frits Schiller's death in 1971, the Schiller Bar was closed, but on the initiative of restaurateur Luc Wildschut, it was reopened on April 28, 1977.
Today you can still enjoy the history of this famous café that lives on through the paintings and historical details.