In the Amsterdam Museum (in room 23) you can sit in one of the original whitecars and experience a virtual ride through Amsterdam. The ‘witkar’ was an electric car and, just like the white bicycle,  designed for collective use. In 1968 former Provo and town counciller Luud Schimmelpenning proposed the the plan for the ‘witkar’. Provo was against the car. The witkar would be a less polluting and less dangerous alternative. The cart was electric and had a maximum speed of only 30 kilometers per hour. The ‘witkar’ existed until 1988. Luud Schimmelpennink is still working on plans for re-introducing the witkar-system. Car2Go presents itself as a (commercial) successor of the witkar.

Amsterdam Museum

Carel Kneulman’s statue of 't Lievertje is a gift to Amsterdam from a tobacco company. That is why ‘anti-smoke magician’ Robert Jasper Grootveld makes it the focus of his happenings. It is at these events that Provos first gather. Bart Heerikhuizen, a highschool student from Heemstede, interviews Grootveld and records a happening in August 1965. **Provo action: Look at the street and find the apple.

Little Darling

In the 1960s, this street is home to several national newspapers and publishers. Provos call it: Publicity Street. On 14 June 1966, riots erupt here in front of the Telegraaf office, where Kasbank is now based.

Telegraaf office

Look for the GNOT sign on the side of the Royal Palace across from Kalverstraat. In the autumn of 1975, police officer Jack Wetterhahn catches a Provo activist red-handed as he carves a protest in the palace wall on Dam Square. The police report states: using a screwdriver, he scratched a picture of a triangle containing an apple - a familiar Provo symbol at that time. That Provo activist is Robert Jasper Grootveld. Towards the end of his life, he showed the place to artist Aja Waalwijk, who would like the sign to become a Provo monument: the Golden GNOT Listen to Eric Duivenvoorden biographer of Robert Jasper Grootveld **Provo action: Should this become a Provo monument? Share your opinion on Twitter or Facebook with #iProvo

Dam Square

In the autumn of 1966, the Provos find a temporary home at Frascati theatre. Tumultuous debates follow and Robert Jasper Grootveld speaks passionately. One of his pet subjects is his Klaas Bank. Grootveld has been obsessed by St Nicolas since childhood. At happenings he shouts: “Klaas is coming.” The notes his Klaas Bank issues state: ‘Klaas Must Pay Some Day.’ **Provo-action: Create your own Klaas Bank: give something to someone who needs it.

Frascati

Sigma Centre opens in the autumn of 1966, to create opportunities for people to play as leisure time increases. Since 1960, Saturday has become a day off and a 40-hour working week is the rule. The only Provo city councillor Bernard de Vries is elected to the city council and votes against subsidising the ‘elitist’ Sigma Centre. Simon Vinkenoog invites Provos to debate the issue. Provo Hans Tuynman explains: ‘The city has made you accept its rules and regulations. Provo supports spontaneous creativity.’ **Provo action: Be creative, do a 1960s performance or recite a poem and share it with #iProvo on Twitter or Facebook.

Sigma centre

Peter Schat is an avant-garde composer and an activist. Besides being activists, Provos are also friends (who argue occasionally too). This is one of the places they meet: Peter Schat’s basement. The photo records a party to celebrate the release of Koosje Koster, after being arrested a few days earlier for distributing raisins.

Peter Schat Basement

Provo photographer Cor Jaring captures this second major happening in Amsterdam at Williams Place café on Zeedijk. Stoned in the Streets is a sensation, with performances that include a striptease by Marijke Koger, ‘the hottest chick in town’. Her body is painted by Simon Posthumus. They travel to London later, where she they creates designs for the Beatles. 

Basement under William’s place 

Provos call everything white: White Bicycles, White Children, and this is the site of the White Negro gallery, specialising in African sculpture. It is home also to the Provo printing press. To keep one step ahead of the police, the press is moved to different places. The police regularly impound the printing press and copies of Provo magazine.

White Negro basement gallery

Although Provo is nonviolent in principle, some Provos are more radical than others. Some throw smoke bombs and even real explosives at protests. No wonder the marines lose patience with the Provos.

Apollo cinema

Provos oppose all forms of authority; their ideal is grassroots spontaneity. Roel van Duijn studies classic anarchist texts. The first edition of Provo magazine even contains a reprint of the early twentieth-century ‘Practical Anarchist’. It includes directions for making explosives and a few caps for readers to let off. The smell is intended to turn bourgeois readers into dedicated anarchist terrorists.

Domela Nieuwenhuis statue

In July 1965, a Telegraaf journalist visits Karthuizersstraat to interview the Provos. She describes them: ‘One has a beard, some have long hair, all are in scruffy clothes... Young men who refuse to work. Young men who are against everything.’ The police kept a close eye on the building. Listen to Roel van Duijn’s stories and judge for yourself.

Home of Rob Stolk and Roel van Duijn

Robert Jasper Grootveld is the inventor of the Marihuette game. His aim is to promote acceptance for mind-expanding substances. He uses comedy to mislead the police. Possession of marihuana is against the law. In fact the packets of Marihu contain no cannabis at all, just straw or herbs. In the game, players collect points: a police raid in search of Marihu is worth 50 points. For every 100 points you get a new packet of Marihu. The Marihuette game is sold at the African drug store, at Fred Wessels’s home. 

African Drug Store

Amsterdam’s first happening is sensational, with impassioned poems by Simon Vinkenoog, performances by Gerrit the Ethersniffer and Johnny the Selfkicker. Here Robert Jasper Grootveld and Bart Huges present the first symbol: the Magies Sentrum Amsterdam sign. **Provo action: At the happening you can call the dead with a Soul Telephone and tweet messages to people like Freud, Marilyn Monroe, Marinus van der Lubbe, James Dean and J. Christ with the dead hashtag #soulphone

Rik van Bentum gallery  - Open the tomb

Aat Veldhoen’s rota prints are on sale in this curiosity shop at Prinsengracht 228. Veldhoen includes many different subjects in his prints: his friend Robbie Grootveld dressed as an African page (Black Pete), a couple making love, nuns, a girl with Down’s syndrome. The police claim the lovers are obscene and impound the prints. Veldhoen appeals the case and eventually wins. **Provo action: The police considered the print erotic and likely to arouse young people. Do you agree? Tell us what you think: #iProvo

Gort gallery

Rumours are rife in the weeks before the royal wedding: Provos are planning to drop LSD in the drinking water, and to frighten the horses with lion droppings. None of it is true. But they do let off smoke bombs. The protests started in the summer of 1965, just after Beatrix and Claus became engaged. Janhuib Blans throws a copy of Provocation no. 3 into the sightseeing boat in which the couple are touring Amsterdam’s canals. **Provo action: Want to know how to make a smoke bomb? Enter here and use the code word (White Smoke)

Raadhuisstraat

It is in this former teacher’s home that revolutionaries, poets, philosophers, Christians and atheists gather to listen to lectures and discuss. Later Provos hone their debating skills and look to anarchists of previous periods for inspiration. 

Social Religious Encounter Centre

Robert Jasper Grootveld opens his anti-smoking temple in March 1962. This is just after the first reports appear on the medical dangers of smoking. Grootveld considers smoking to be a mystical act akin to the performance of a sacrifice. So the members of the Conscious Nicotinist sect who gather at his K Temple burn tobacco ceremonially. Grootveld hails its columns decorated with adverts showing happy, healthy smokers as the totem poles of Western civilisation. 

K Temple

This used to be a police station, as the sign states. In the 1960s, many Provos and young rebels land in jail here. Police and Provos are locked in a vicious struggle. In the 1960s, many people try out various drugs. For Provos smoking pot is in itself provocative. People smoke together and at each others homes. Since it is still illegal, no one smokes in public. It is around 1970, that the authorities start to become more tolerant. **Provo action: Go downstairs to see the cells, and if you like you can smoke a joint... without fear of arrest (unless you are under 18).

Leidseplein police station / Bulldog

When Paradiso opens, Willem de Ridder moves the Provadya nights from Felix Merites to the new venue: happening nights with music and light shows. Paradiso soon gains a worldwide reputation. Pink Floyd concerts, naked female dance groups, liquid slide shows, jazz concerts, joints and chillums: anything can happen at Paradiso.

Paradiso

Bart Huges is obsessed with psychedelic drugs. He drops acid for the first time in 1958. In the early 1960s he brings cannabis from Ibiza for his friends in Amsterdam. In 1963, he names his daughter Maria Juana! After reading about a method that supposedly ensures a permanent high: , trepanation or drilling a hole in his skull. Hhe decides to try it on himself. . Many Some Provos believe him to be mentally unstable. The photo has become a is iconic in Provo circlesicon, yet Bart Huges was not really a Provo.

Wilhemina Hospital psychiatric wing - Bart Huges

Hippies start to congregate in Amsterdam’s Vondel Park in the summer of 1967. They oppose the Vietnam War and support free sex and drugs. Make love, not war. In the early 1970s, KLM use the park in its adverts: ‘Fly KLM, sleep in the Vondelpark’. Pan Am even organise weekly hippie flights with a macrobiotic breakfast and hippie musicians. Their slogan is: ‘Open up your Vondelpark, Amsterdammers here we come’. Wherever the hippies pitch their tents, the trash mounts. Many are addicted to drugs, which leads to trouble in the park. In 1975, the city makes sleeping in the park illegal. An old domestic science school is converted into a youth hostel (today’s Stayokay) to house the Vondel Park vagrants. The video clip shows you an impression of the Vondelpark in the sixties. **Provo action: Give love to someone.

StayOkay youth hostel

It is here that the Provos hold their last turbulent meeting on 14 May 1967. Half of them want to continue, the other half want to stop.  Listen to provos Roel van Duijn and Janhuib Blans and to historian Eric Duivenvoorden.

Speakers Corner

The statue of Governor J.B. van Heutsz of the Dutch East Indies was already controversial when it was unveiled in 1935. While for Provos the monument celebrates Dutch colonialism, the bellicose Van Heutsz also symbolises the Vietnam War. In 1966, some  Provos try to blow up the statue. One of the lion’s paws is chipped.

Van Heutsz monument

Pop stars John Lennon and Yoko Ono spend their honeymoon week here in March 1969. They draw the attention of the world’s press. Former Provos visit to the hotel to bring John and Yoko a white bicycle. Other visitors are the members of the Insect Sect, protesting against pollution, with a butterfly as their symbol. These lines form The Ballad Of John And Yoko are written on the ceiling over de John and Yoko suite Drove from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton Talking in our bed for a week The newspapers said, say what you doing in bed? I said, were only trying to get us some peace Look at the video clip for some footage of the visit of Yoko Ono and Lennon in Amsterdam. **Provo action: Sing the Ballad Of John And Yoko and share on social media with #iProvo

Hilton Hotel

On 23 December 1965, Provo activists and other youths gather at the American Consulate for a sit-in against the Vietnam War. It is the Amsterdam’s first Vietnam protest. It is also the scene of the first Provo smoke bomb. The police had already cordoned off the consulate with fences and horses. 

American Consulate

Listen to Auke Boersma. In addition to the many Provos at the launch of the exhibition, there are ten white chickens. Chicken is Amsterdam slang for a policeman: kip. Provo Auke Boersma is the author of the White Chicken scheme, an angry response to the police suppression of the royal wedding protests. Provos want the police to be disarmed and to be citizen-friendly. The police reject the idea completely and strike back at the protestors with full force. Louis van Gasteren’s report is shown on television that same evening, but is subsequently censored.

Polak & van Gennep publishers

Fantasio launches a day before Paradiso opens. Willem de Ridder is one of the founders of Paradiso as well as Fantasio. He transforms the community centre into a cultural youth centre. De Ridder paints a jungle in the hall himself shortly before the opening. In the autumn of 1969, the building undergoes another metamorphosis: it becomes the Kosmos Meditation Centre.

Fantasio

Provo’s White Bicycle plan is not limited to a particular neighbourhood. Provos decide to paint the first bikes white at Spui. When they get elected to the city council they propose a plan to bring about the White Bicycle plan by introducing 10,000 bikes to the city.. The proposal is rejected, almost unanimously. Amsterdam is one of the few capitals without a system for sharing bicycles, although there are plenty for hire. * Get on your bike or hire one and cycle the rest of the tour.

White Bikes

May 1965: the start of Provo! The protest movement uses playful events and happenings to shake society awake. Discover the ‘magic center Amsterdam’ with this iProvo tour. Former provo’s Roel van Duijn, Janhuib Blans, Auke Boersma and Sara Stolk look back at this rebellious period. Historian Eric Duivenoorden talks about the importance of Provo. The app also contains archival film and photograhs. Navigate through the map to all the highlighted points. There is no order in the route, start and finish wherever and whenever you want. At most of the Provo stops you will find a poster and sometimes a white bike. Provo action: To make you feel even more provoking we have added some playful tasks, questions or statements. Finally, share your photos and actions on Twitter or Facebook with the hashtag #iProvo

Amsterdam

iProvo

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