On April 27, 2021, King Willem-Alexander will celebrate his 54th birthday together with Queen Máxima and the three princesses in Eindhoven. The royal family will be present at the High Tech Campus (HTC) for a unique Eindhoven program. Eating cookies with the King, a selfie with Máxima, or waving to Alexia from the sidelines: unfortunately, that is not possible this year. They will not be walking around the city. The people of Eindhoven will present to the King and his family primarily digitally.

King's Day 2020

Last year you missed the King's Day blog, because the trip to Maastricht did not go ahead for the King and his family on April 27, 2020. The Municipality of Maastricht and the Province of Limburg have decided this. They cite the measures against the coronavirus as the reason. Although the coronavirus measures are currently in effect until April 6, 2020, they have such a major impact on the preparations that it is not possible to set up the program as intended, the organization writes in a press release. You simply cannot practice digitally as a group, because that simply has to be done physically in a room. It was nationwide due to corona Housing Day 2020You had gained a nice glimpse into the normal life of the royal family in their palace. The usual street markets and music festivals were also cancelled.

It is very rare for King's Day (or its predecessor Queen's Day) to be cancelled. In 2001, Queen's Day did not take place due to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Meppel and Hoogeveen. In 2002, these two cities were visited. And in 2013, there was no Queen's Day due to the succession to the throne.

Four 10-crown stamps depict scenes from the Queen's life: as a girl with her two younger sisters and her father, King Frederik IX; her marriage in 1967 to Prince Consort Henrik; with her young son, Crown Prince Frederik, born in 1968; and a right-facing profile of the young Queen smiling. The 30-crown stamp shows the Queen turning 80. It was previously announced that King Willem-Alexander would not be present at the King's Games, as he was attending the 80th birthday of Queen Margrethe II with Queen Máxima and Princess Beatrix. Denmark would go. Due to the coronavirus, this visit did not take place either.

The King's Games , which were to be held nationwide on April 17, 2020, were also cancelled. For more than 1,2 million primary school children, there was no sports day that day. The King's Games have been held at primary schools since 2013. It is a day with a joint breakfast and sporting activities. The theme for 2020 was 'Hand in Hand'.

 

North Brabant popular with the Royal Family

In November 2020, the RVD announced that the King would celebrate his 54th birthday with his family in Eindhoven. Maastricht was expected because the visit did not take place in 2020, but the organizers had the foresight that the corona pandemic had not yet blown over. Limburgers are bon vivants, so doing everything via Zoom and Teams is not feasible. Just like in 2017, it turned out to be a city in North Brabant again. Back then, it was Tilburg the happy city on its 50th birthday.

We knew Eindhoven very recently (January 24, 2021) because of the 'curfew' riots, the lady from the Primera store, the water cannon, the police horse, Mayor Jorritsma ('civil war' and 'scum of the earth'). It was a busy evening for the security services. If you missed the blog: https://www.postzegelblog.nl/2021/01/25/fila-corona-varia-34/#more-612555  

Eindhoven (EHV) on a postage stamp

Some residents of Eindhoven were not happy with the design of the 2011 TNT stamp (see below). Surely much better designs are possible. A design competition was launched under the name 'Eindhoven on a postage stampThe most beautiful Eindhoven stamp was rewarded with a personalized stamp from TNT. Below is a selection of 64 entries.

A stamp that leaves you speechless, that is how jury chairman Huug Schipper (the designer of the Mooi Nederland Eindhoven sheet) described the winning entry of the competitionEHV on a StampA plug in the shape of the Light Tower can be seen on it. The award ceremony took place on Friday evening at the Eindhoven library in the Witte Dame. According to Schipper, Pieter Buijs's stamp is so special because it displays something essential about the city using minimal means. 'The design is enviably simple. If we were to enlarge it, it would not look out of place in a museum.' The winning design will be released as a sheet of ten personalized stamps from TNT.  

King's Day 2021

In 2011, a total of six sheets were released in the Beautiful Netherlands series. In addition to Eindhoven Almere, Breda, Apeldoorn, and Enschede were also depicted. In addition, there is a collector's sheet with all five stamps as a collage. The sheet with five stamps features well-known Eindhoven buildings such as the Evoluon, the Witte Dame, and Dynamo.

The designer of the stamps is Huug Schipper from The Hague. 'Choosing the buildings for the stamp sheet was not easy. In the end, I had to choose from more than 300 photos. Well-known buildings such as the Philips Stadium and the DAF Museum are not included. The Evoluon wasn't included at first either, but on second thought, I couldn't avoid it.' The soul of Eindhoven cannot be captured in a single image. Online alone, there are millions of hits and images linked to Eindhoven. Therefore, as a starting point for the stamp design, the design agency ViziVorm linked 6 themes and 6 landmarks of Eindhoven to the 6 original centers from which Eindhoven originated. Online, this yields 32.779.460 results. The resulting image collage has been placed on a stamp. With a magnifying glass, with which a true stamp collector is equipped, one makes surprising discoveries. One of the entrants to the design competition 'Eindhoven on a Stamp'.  It was already known that physical activities could not take place due to the coronavirus measures and that King's Day 2021 would mainly take place from the couch. To still create a King's Day feeling for the people of Eindhoven, a few city activities have been organized, alongside a digital program and a studio setting at the High Tech Campus (HTC). It is a full program and includes a studio program (caravan of vehicles, conversations with designers, sports, technological highlights), city and neighborhood activities, a digital program with five Knowledge Makers and the theme 'food and drink'. In 2021, the King games continued with outdoor activities with the theme 'I + YOU = WE'.

The King will in his own blue DAF Willem-Alexander is driving during the caravan of old and new vehicles. The family (Princess Beatrix and Prince Claus) used the car for many years at their holiday residence in Porto Ercole, Italy. You can find the full story of this car (with photo) at the special link below. In 1914 founded Philips, the company that could then still be referred to as the light bulb manufacturer from Eindhoven, established a research laboratory. This testing ground grew as Natlab developed into an important industrial research center. Thanks to the innovations from the NatLab, Philips became a global corporation. The NatLab was initially located in the Strijp district of Eindhoven. In the 1960s, the research center moved to a business location in Waalre.

The King's Day location is the High Tech Campus Eindhoven, formerly Philips High Tech Campus, is a technology-focused business campus on the outskirts of Eindhoven and Waalre, along the A2. It is located on the grounds of the NatLabOriginally established by Philips in 1998, a multitude of companies are now located there, resulting in a cluster of technical-scientific research, development, and process and production technology. The site is home to several restaurants, sports facilities, shops, a supermarket, and a hair salon, among other amenities. Most central facilities are located in The Strip, an elongated building.

ASML will also be on display during King's Day. ASML is a successful high-tech company and the leading supplier of machines for the semiconductor industry, which are used in the manufacture of chips. Customers are predominantly chip manufacturers. ASML's headquarters and corporate complex are located in Veldhoven, where both research and development and assembly in cleanrooms take place. The company also has sixty service points in fourteen countries to support the installation and delivery of machines and spare parts. ASML originated from a joint venture between ASM International and Philips. This Monopoly The game was included in the 2007 Christmas package for ASML employees. Due to the international nature of the company, the game was designed and produced in English by USA-Opoly; it includes two sets of 'Internal Email' and 'Press Release' cards (the alternative to 'Chance' and 'Community Chest'), one set in English and the other in Dutch. The High Tech Campus Eindhoven is a hub of technological developments, with more than 165 companies and technical institutes conducting joint research. The research is divided into five clusters:

• Nano and Microsystems
• Life Tech
• infotainment
• Built-in Software
• High-Tech Systems

While Philips' Physics Laboratory was not accessible to the public, the grounds of the High Tech Campus are. The individual buildings on the campus are, however, not accessible, with the exception of the Strip and the facilities within it. High Tech Brainport Eindhoven will organize the most innovative King's Day for the King and his family.

Ajax (Amsterdam) will become national champions in the 2020/2021 season. PSV (Eindhoven) is expected to finish second in the final standings. But the main prize for Eindhoven is organizing King's Day 2021. The Philips Museum, where the history of Philips is on display, is located in the center of Eindhoven.

 

Het Evolution

The architecture of various buildings inspires designers for stamp designs. Do you recognize these buildings in Eindhoven? We cannot ignore them. The skyline of Eindhoven used to be the Evoluon. Thousands of visitors visited the Evoluon as an educational technology museum in the period 1966–1989. The Evoluon It is a disc-shaped building designed by architects Louis Kalff and Leo de Bever. The futuristic dome, resembling a flying saucer, measures 77 m in diameter, and the dome's concrete is held in place by 169 kilometers of tension cable. The building is used for exhibitions and as a congress and event center. It was designated a national monument in 2018.  The Evoluon was built as a showcase for technological progress, and particularly those aspects thereof in which Philips was involved. The building was 'offered' to the city of Eindhoven in 1966 on the occasion of Philips' 75th anniversary.   To mark its 75th anniversary, Philips issued a postcard that could be stamped and included with the European Round Flight. On this flight, operated by the Philips Friendship with registration PH-LIP, all the European capitals of the time were visited, after which the entire package was neatly delivered back to Welschap Airfield (the military section of Eindhoven Air Base) bearing a commemorative stamp.

The building was used as an educational technology museum from 1966 to 1989 and attracted large numbers of visitors until the 70s. This was partly because visitors were allowed to experiment themselves and operate demonstration models. That was still new at the time and particularly attractive to schoolchildren and other young people. Many schools traditionally organized a 'trip to the Evoluon' once a year. It was part of a NS day tripMoreover, there were no competing technology museums in the Netherlands yet.    In the 70s and 80s, however, similar technology-oriented public museums emerged in other cities as well, such as in Amsterdam (NINT and later NEMO). As a result, visitor numbers at the Evoluon declined every year. The operation and updating of the exhibitions cost a great deal of money, and eventually, the company ended up in the red. Things were not going well for Philips (the owner of the building) during those years either, and the group divested many unprofitable branches during large-scale reorganizations. According to Philips, it had become too expensive to adequately update the exhibitions. Despite much protest, the corporate management decided, after years of losing money on the Evoluon, to close the exhibition in the building, and from 1989 onwards, it no longer served a public function.

  Good news. The Evoluon is returning as a technology museum. School trips will soon be possible again. It is regaining its original function and becoming a museum about the future of our planet. Under the plan, the municipality, the province, and the national government will contribute to the costs. Furthermore, the organization will collaborate with Amsterdam's NEMO.

  See article: https://www.trouw.nl/cultuur-media/eindhovens-evoluon-krijgt-oude-functie-terug-en-wordt-weer-een-museum~bf518d40/  

King's Day food and drink

We cannot celebrate King's Day in large numbers with a flea market and local music festivals. The hospitality industry is only open for takeaway on April 27, 2021. But we can go all out in orange. tompouces eat with orange liqueur. Each tompouce consists of two layers of puff pastry, with pastry cream or sometimes whipped cream in between. On top is pink (and today Orange) glaze. During their visit, the royal family also receives a crash course in eating tompouces from pastry chef Robèrt van Beckhoven.

The design of Typisch Nederlands – tompouce is by graphic designer Edwin van Praet of Total Design in Amsterdam. The photos were taken by Scrambled Media, also from Amsterdam. Coincidence plays a role, as the first tompouce is said to have been made around 1845 by a pastry chef from Amsterdam, as a variation on the French pastry millefeuille. Tom Pouce is to French what Tom Thumb is to English and Little Thumb is to Dutch. According to legend, the pastry chef named his pastry after a circus performer named General Tom Thumb, who was reportedly only 66 cm tall. Another explanation is that the puff pastry of a tompouce crumbles when you eat it. Just like in the fairy tale of Tom Thumb who scattered crumbs in the forest to be able to find his way back home.

 

 

More Info

King's Day 2021: https://koningsdageindhoven.nl/ HTC: https://hightechcampus.com/nl Philips: https://www.philips.com/a-w/research/home History of tompouces: https://coquinaria.nl/oranjegezinde-tompouce/ Philips museum: https://www.philips.nl/a-w/philips-museum.html DAF museum: https://www.dafmuseum.nl/nl-nl DAF Willem-Alexander: https://autorai.nl/autos-van-toen-daf-willem-alexander/ King's Day 2019: https://www.postzegelblog.nl/2019/04/25/koningsdag-in-amersfoort/ King's Day 2018: https://www.postzegelblog.nl/2018/05/02/koningsdag-in-groningen/