Textile capital turned art hub — De Pont and the Netherlands' alternative music scene
Tilburg reinvented itself from a textile factory town into one of the Netherlands' most dynamic creative cities. The De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, housed in a former wool spinning mill, holds one of the best contemporary art collections in the Benelux — Richard Serra, Marlene Dumas, Anselm Kiefer. The 013 music venue is the spiritual home of the Dutch alternative rock scene, and the annual Incubate music festival brings experimental music from around the world. Tilburg University gives the city a young population, and the Saturday market is one of the largest in the Netherlands.
Tilburg grew from a collection of villages on the sandy North Brabant heathland into a major industrial city during the Industrial Revolution, becoming the centre of the Dutch wool and textile industry in the 19th century — the 'Dutch Manchester.' Tens of thousands of workers laboured in the mills; the factory architecture (many repurposed today) still defines large parts of the city. After WWII deindustrialisation, Tilburg lost its industrial base and struggled until investing heavily in education, culture, and creative industries from the 1980s. The De Pont (1992) and the 013 venue transfor…