Watergraafsmeer: two utopias on the Middenweg
The last country estate inside the ring, then a 1920s village built entirely of concrete. Walked and written by the editor.

1. Park Frankendael
The last surviving country estate inside the ring road, with the only remaining 18th-century manor house in the *Watergraafsmeer*. Walk the formal gardens behind it before the day warms up.

2. De Kas
A 1920s municipal nursery glasshouse, saved from demolition and now a restaurant that grows much of what it serves in the beds around it. You needn't book a table; the greenhouse and its kitchen garden read fine from the path.

3. Middenweg crossing
The old road across the drained lake, and the seam between the two halves of this walk. Cross here; the estate is behind you and the experiment is ahead.

4. Betondorp — the Brink
The central square the concrete village fans out from, ringed by its shops. Stand in the middle and look at the lettering above the storefronts; it's avant-garde in a way 1925 rarely allowed itself.

5. Akkerstraat
One of the streets named for farming — Field Street — and the one where Johan Cruyff grew up, across from the old Ajax ground. The houses are poured concrete in a dozen experimental systems; no two terraces age the same way.

6. Middenweg shops
Land back on the Middenweg where the *buurt* does its everyday business — a coffee, a bakery — and tram 19 takes you out. The two utopias are ten minutes apart and a world apart.

Watergraafsmeer: two utopias on the Middenweg