Old Warande

The Old Warande is the University’s backyard. It is a pleasure ground, landscaped like the formal, geometric French gardens that were popular in the 18th century. The park was commissioned by Willem van Hessen-Kassel, then Lord of the fiefdom of Tilburg and Goirle, and its construction was undertaken from 1712 onwards.

Geometrical pattern

The Old Warande was set up as a series of eight lanes, radiating out from the center to the corners and edges. If you look at its structure as a geometrical pattern, the park is a square that has been divided into four smaller squares. Each of these quadrants is bisected by two diagonals, producing four equal triangles in each quadrant and sixteen triangles altogether. The four lanes that make up the parks outer square enclose an area of about seventy hectares. Pleasure grounds like this often have a central axis leading up to a landmark, and The Old Warande had one too; it led the eye up to the Church of Heike, a good three kilometers away. This served as its eye catcher until 1962, when the University perched down at the edges of the park and interrupted the view. One of the lanes is still called the Tower Droveway (Torendreef).

Medical school

After several conflicts with various owners about the park’s uses and extensions, the local Tilburg council became the park’s owner in 1952. The park, meanwhile, was badly in need of some tender maintenance and loving repair, which were undertaken without delay but ground to a halt in the mid-sixties when there was talk of Tilburg getting a medical faculty. This faculty, the town’s elders opined, would fit very nicely in the wood, all the more so as the Elisabeth Hospital in the town center had grown beyond its capacity. The College, also wanting to be ahead of the game, purchased the adjacent premises, where the Auberge and Van Lanschot bankers were located in 2017. When the medical faculty was not allocated to Tilburg in 1969, however, the council thought it might cheer up the College by offering to sell the Warande Wood for the symbolic price of one guilder. This was politely declined.

Famous exhibitions

From the eighties on, the council began to make serious work of the park’s renovation: the old system of lanes was restored, sick trees were cut down, the clogged-up pond was dug out and “wild” paths were removed. By 2008, the wood was restored to its former glory. Since 2010, the Fundament Foundation has put on exhibitions with some regularity. In 2009, the Grotto by Callum Morton was opened, a work of art that reflects its environment and the weather conditions, and serves as a meeting point with modest catering facilities. In 2017, The Old Warande was listed as a municipal monument because of its “unique cultural-historical value.”

A wooden elephant by artist Kevin van Braak was on display in the outdoor exhibition Lustwarande 2015; this statue raises awareness of the poaching of exotic animals.