Stichting Herengracht 401 - H401

About Stichting Herengracht 401 - H401

H401 is a private cultural foundation located in the Herengracht building of the late artist Gisèle d’Ailly van Waterschoot van der Gracht. H401 works in collaboration with local and international institutions, artists, thinkers, scholars and scientists. Academic and artistic research at H401 goes hand in hand with performative and participatory research, through residences, exhibitions, think tanks and publications. For years, H401 has been organizing thematic year programmes exploring actual topics that we all constantly deal with and strive to understand better such as vulnerability to Groupfanaticism, Friendship, Collective Memory and the relation to identity (Memory Machine - We Are What We Remember), Freedom, the Female Perspective and Shame and Masculinity. H401 was previously known as Castrum Peregrini, a name that belongs to the history of the house. During WWII, it was the nom-de-guerre of the safe house in Herengracht 401. There, together with the poet Wolfgang Frommel, Gisèle aided Jewish youngsters to hide and survive the persecution. After the war, Castrum Peregrini became the name of the publishing house founded and run by Frommel. His circle of friends also called themselves Castrum Peregrini. His publishing house was discontinued in early 2008. From 2009 a radical change in programming was made. It was (initially) done under the name Castrum Peregrini - Intellectual Playground. However, after the investigation into the house's multi-layered past, which revealed lives were saved, but also damaged, a new name is in effect from 2019. H401 - short for Herengracht 401 - is the densest name imaginable for the literal location of the house. Although in the same house, with partly historic interiors, the new name clearly reflects the different, topical activities being now organised as art, research and dialogue take centre stage these days.

Keywords

• Arts
• Heritage
• Memory
• Research
• Residencies

Address

• Headquarters

  Herengracht 4011017BP AmsterdamNoord-Holland, Netherlands

Team by function

Based on 3 public job profiles as of 5 September 2026.

• General Staff / Operational1
• Marketing1
• Operations1