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Amsterdam is filled with old institutions now
converted to museums such as this classical 15th century
orphanage now the Historical Museum. This courtyard
features the wire sculptures of of Wim Bakker and Leo van
den Bos. But other walls feature...
...old façade stones (called "gevelstenen") taken from remodeled buildings -- signs from the days when few could read but all could shop. Amsterdam outlawed wooden houses after its 1452 fire. New houses were required to be built of stone with tile roofs. It would be centuries before the conquering French (read Napoleon) would impose house numbers. Until then, artists would embed these logos into the narrow facades.
Many other building styles line the canals and
Amsterdam has its own adaptations as well. This building
now houses Het Internationaal Danstheater, one of the
country's largest professional dance companies that
stages productions from all corners of the globe. Its
mid-level windows have Gothic tracery but most arches
have accented keystones suggesting Dutch Renaissance. At
top we have homage to the Amsterdam gables that define
the city's skyline. The original owners were wealthy to
afford this wide of a space on the canal.
Here's a variation of what we just saw. This is in a
newly rehabbed area called the Jordaan (The word probably
has the same root as the French "Jardin" as this was once
the garden area.) This was probably built as a warehouse
(A great trading city would have many warehouses on its
canals to facilitate the logistics of moving freight.
Note the beams sticking out from the gables that would
hold the pulleys). Most now have been converted to
apartments.
But nearby we find this classical structure. Most of the wider buildings have been turned over to businesses and institutions nowadays.
But the granddaddy of Amsterdam canal buildings is atypically wide. It's the 1889 Amsterdam Centraal railway station that sits atop the canal system with the IJ bay at its back. Effective urban planning in the 17th century created a canal system made of four concentric half-circles and when the train station was built centuries later, it was placed at the bulls-eye of what would be a nearly perfect half-target of water rings. Three man-made islands created by nearly 9000 poles pounded into the sandy river bottom support architect Pierre Cuypers's structure which flirts with Renaissance but is pretty much neo-Gothic. The location was quite controversial in its day as it cut off the city view of its bay. It's hard to get a picture nowadays as construction is adding more subways into the station's grid.
Speaking of Pierre Cuypers neo-Gothic, here's another
wide building that sits at nearly the bottom of the
half-concentric canal system: the 1885 Rijksmuseum
Amsterdam. Cuypers started by building French-inspired
churches but moved towards Netherlands neo-Gothic over
time. Here he's augmented that with a bit of Renaissance
roof and corner treatments. You'll note a certain pattern
with the Dutch institutional architecture using huge
numbers of bricks and interrupting them with horizontal
stone to break the monotony. Cuypers had an architectural
firm of Catholics in a very Protestant late 19th century
country. The king at first refused to enter this
building, saying it was too Catholic. So much for French
roofs and Gothic spires.
Over a million people a year visit here to tromp by
the Golden Age of Dutch Painting. While waiting in line,
they admire some of the architectural details suggesting
the history of the visual arts including six tile
tableaux by G. Sturm. These are embedded in the brick
façade (perhaps a variation of the façade
stones we featured earlier)...
...but my favorite external details in this neo-Gothic building with Renaissance pretensions were Cuypers' variations on the gargoyles. While the weather was generally good during this three week trip to Europe, on this day we fought the rain -- but with less panache than this fin-de-siècle downspout.
With its variations on a theme of narrow buildings
rising five or six stories, Amsterdam often seems like
one set of concentric canals after another. Taxes of
canal property are based on canal frontage, encouraging
height but not width. (We noticed the same with the tall
but thin Dutch bike riders.) Amsterdam 1.3 million
inhabitants are augmented with 4 million tourists
annually.
Here's the logical conclusion for taxing based upon
width. I'm not sure the tall Dutch could sleep parallel
to the river in this place.
By comparison, this seems a bit bloated. Wide
buildings almost always had a governmental function such
as this picture of the Bushius. Many of those buildings
today are used by the University of Amsterdam which seems
to be gobbling up (and restoring) many of the stately
buildings on the canals. That's the case here with this
1890 Dutch Renaissance building -- now a library -- on
the site of what was once the old arsenal and later
headquarters for the first multinational - the Dutch East
Indies Company.
The building with its tile details such as we see here was designed by architect Cornelis Hendrik Peters. No surprise, he learned his craft in the firm of Pierre Cuypers who built the neo-Gothic Rijksmuseum and Centraal Train Station. Peters masterwork is ...
...the post office, now an upscale shopping center
just off Dam Square. Religion was still an issue in
architecture during the late 19th century. The firm which
dominated public commissions was led by Cuypers; Peters
was the only Protestant architect in the office. In 1878,
Peters was all but anointed as the state's chief
architect - and tasked with revising Dutch architecture
to merge the pagan Renaissance into the neo-Gothic.
Despite the typical use of horizontal stones to enliven
the brickwork, the strong vertical lines, French roofs,
and soaring spires of this building say neo-Gothic
...
... but inside, the post office looks most unCatholic.
Roman aqueducts may come to mind -- or perhaps the
flowing rows of Cordoba's grand mosque with its arch
stones of alternating colors.
While there's a lot of neo-Gothic and Dutch
Renaissance buildings lining canals, quite a variety of
styles intermingle as with this Italian Renaissance
structure which now houses an interdisciplinary center to
study Genocide and the Holocaust. (What we once thought
history is too often current events. In the 20th century,
more people died through genocide and state mass murders
than in all wars combined.) This is an elegant place to
study the Holocaust systematically.
But this hodgepodge of non-descript canal houses linked together brings the horror down to the individual level. At far left is the warehouse that became a piano roll factory in the 20th century until Otto Frank made it his offices - and for two years the hiding place of his diarist daughter, Anne Frank. Today it has expanded into this nearly vacant museum complex that gets more visitors than all of the Rembrandts in the Rijksmuseum. Here you relive the utter ordinariness of the coming-of-age story of the girl who didn't.
Amsterdam's streets sometimes seem to be little more
than paved strips edging canals, occasionally interrupted
by large plazas. However, guidebooks directed us to this
pleasant courtyard bristling with Catholic history in
Protestant Amsterdam. It's a Béguinage (Dutch:
Begijnof) -- a cluster of small homes used by lay
sisterhoods who each had their small units rather than
living in a large convent under professed vows. While
what we see here is mostly from the 17th and 18th
centuries, Béguinages go back as least as far as
the 13th century when wars reduced the number of men --
forcing women to band together for economic survival and
to perform charitable works.
The entrance appears to be just another building on
old Amsterdam's streets. (In fact, this street was a
canal long since filled in). But the discreet bike sign
suggests something lies behind.
The doorway (restored in 1907) leads through this
Gothic-ribbed passageway into Amsterdam's only remaining
medieval courtyard. The rest of the city since risen
since, making this area is about 3 feet lower than the
surrounding streets. Through here, modern tourists begin
their Beguine experience.
Amsterdam's Begijnof expanded in the 15th century to
enclose the present courtyard after a canal was filled
in. Huge fires in 1421 and 1452 destroyed much of
Amsterdam, including the complex on this site. A century
later, Amsterdam went Protestant with a vengeance; but
since this entire complex was Catholic-owned, it was
allowed to survive: a Catholic island for 2 centuries.
The last Beguine died in 1971 and the homes were restored
and made into 2 or 3 room apartments from 1980-1987.
Today a foundation rents out the homes - to 93 women.
Let's take a look at a three of the buildings in the
complex. Here is one of only two completely wooden houses
left in the center of Amsterdam (although 18 of the 47
townhouses in this courtyard have a Gothic wood
skeleton). Dating from around 1470, it's called Houten
Huys.
Of course, the lay sisters would have their church.
This Gothic structure served them (and apparently
survived the great fires) since 1419. But in 1607,
Amsterdam confiscated it and gave it to the English
Protestant community. This drove the Beguines in 1671 to
task architect Philip Vingboons to create a chapel behind
two adjacent building fronts ...
...so that we have a Catholic chapel which looks from
the outside like just two townhouses. (Amsterdam elders
demanded that the building not look like a Catholic
church from the outside. In other parts of Amsterdam,
Catholics built hidden chapels within buildings (called
"schuilkerken.") Anne Frank was not the first here to go
into hiding because of religious identity.)
We've loaded about 50 more pictures (but not much in the way of captions) on our supplemental page. To view, click here.
Here's a square much different than the Begijnhof. It's called Dam Square since this was the spot where the Amstel river was dammed up in 1270 (giving the city its name, of course.) It's now landlocked and is bordered by several monuments we'll explore later. At center is famous modern architect Jacobus Oud's 1956 National Monument honoring WWII victims.
Amsterdam's innermost canal is called the Singel - it
served as the defensive moat until 1585. Floating on it
since 1862 is the Bloemenmarkt, the world's only floating
flower market.
Barges support the oldest established permanent
floating florists - 15 of them. Tourists buy many more
souvenirs here rather than flowers, to the delight of the
merchants and the consternation of the city fathers who
are trying to restrict such sales. It could be worse;
this innermost canal also houses ...
... the famous red light district. Gentle viewers, we won't publish many pictures of the three red light districts in Amsterdam. But here's one of a boutique that sells interesting paraphernalia including a vibrator shaped like the Netherlands national flower (with charger, of course.) What would your nana say about that?
Central Amsterdam is a highly desirable and expensive place to live so pretty much all of the housing stock on the canals appears in immaculate condition. However, note that some of these buildings lean! The ground below is river bottom and foundations are created by driving hundreds or thousands of wooden poles into the ground. If the water stays high, no oxygen gets to the wood and all is well. If the waterline recedes, poles rot and floors list.
By now, you're saying "where's the church!" If wasn't
that hard holding off as these Protestant Dutch had real
iconoclasts in the 16th century that did a pretty good
job of smashing up the Catholic trappings. But let's look
at two monuments named, somewhat prosaically, as the old
and new church.The "new" church (Nieuwe Kerk) is the
National Church of the Netherlands - except it's not a
church anymore but rather a place to stage secular
activities - like coronations and royal marriages. (Have
the Dutch replaced religious with exhibitionists?)
Despite several fires and pillages, the space still
contains three large jewels: the organ, the wood pulpit,
and the choir screen (for a church that doesn't have a
choir.) Note the wooden ceiling; in Holland builders
reduced the use of stone as much as feasible since the
weight could make buildings sink into the soft river-bed
soil underneath.
Since Protestants actually listen to their sermons, the
pulpit is a big deal. This pulpit is the 1649 masterpiece
of sculptor Albert Jansz Vinckenbrinck. Not only is this
space not a church, but Nieuwe Kerk is not really all
that new. Construction started Catholic in 1408 and the
place has been pillaged and burnt several times. Plumbers
accidentally burnt the roof off in 1645 and nearly
destroyed the entire place. But this gave then-Protestant
Amsterdam the chance to put its stamp on the place with
massive art works such as this.
Here's a detail of Vinckenbrinck's hexagonal rostrum
with a demonstration of Renaissance perspective carved in
relief to infinity - from which fully three-dimensional
statues emerge. Note the folds (and blindfolds). The
reliefs show works of charity and the statues represent
the virtues, a Christian mythology without saints. At
bottom are the evangelists (Luke pets his symbol, the
bull). All this is at eye level to the worshipers. You
can worship more of these details yourself on our
supplemental slides of the Nieuwe Kerk.
Above 's the massive covering (but without the radiant
dove of the Holy Spirit seen over Catholic pulpits.)
There's a definite Gothic feel to the Vinckenbrinck's
canopy hovering over his Renaissance rostrum. In the days
before amplifiers, this large hexagon projected the
sermon throughout the church.
Another magnificent addition after the
near-catastrophic 1645 fire was the main organ, 10 years
in the building by several of the major artists of its
day. This gorgeous Goliath features the Old Testament
king David (who was not just a ruler, but a string player
as well - perhaps a worthy predecessor to Bono). Note the
hinged doors in the middle story - they swing out to
display even further decoration.
Silversmith Johannes Lutma created this masterpiece of
a choir screen. It's made of wood wrapped in brass. At
center top, the two lions hold the crest of Amsterdam - a
completely secular presentation. Its classical pilasters
are threatened by swirling ornamentation suggesting the
baroque. The only thing missing is...
...the choir. Choir screens separate the congregation from the main altar which has been replaced by this monument to a war hero. After the 1645 fire, the Dutch decided to keep this space separated for more intimate ceremonies such as weddings. (Getting married here increased a couple's social status). Hence Lutma's brass screen. This church was once a cemetery for perhaps as many as 10,000 people. The richer you were, the more likely you were to be able to afford a spot here in the choir. Typical graves stacked up four or five coffins. As the floor sank, graves were often emptied - creating a stench. Recent renovations have removed the rest.
To see more of the Nieuwe Kerk, click here.
If the new church (Nieuwe Kerk) started abuilding in
1408, how old is the old church (Oude Kerk)? About a
century older. This was the church of St. Nicholas and
dates from 1306 when Amsterdam was not much more than a
dam built by fisherman on the river Amstel. (It's the
oldest building in today's city.) Built upon a mound
thought to be more stable than the marsh that surrounded
it, the foundation nearly collapsed in the 1950s and the
place was closed down for decades. Today it's open for
concerts and presentations - its wooden ceiling provides
some of the best acoustics in Europe.
In many ways, this place is a survivor, as you'd
expect from the oldest building in an old town. When
Amsterdam when Protestant in a vicious way, the
iconoclasts came and destroyed all of the Catholic
religious symbols - except for up on this wood ceiling
that was out of reach. It's made of Estonian wood rather
than stone, of course, to cut down on the weight to keep
the structure from sinking into the soft riverbed. It's
the largest medieval wooden vault in Europe. How this
ceiling survived the great fires that nearly wiped out
Amsterdam in the 15th century is anyone's guess.
Given the acoustics, the place is still known for
organ concerts and has a long tradition of organ masters;
some were also prolific composers. This is the
Vater-Müller organ first built in 1724 (by Vater)
but dismantled and reassembled a few times (by
Müller) when the church was in danger of collapse.
It's considered among the finest Baroque organs in
Europe.The floor beneath housed many as the homeless
congregated here during the Catholic days and the entire
floor continued to be a cemetery. (The church was built
over an existing cemetery.) Merchants also set up shops
inside the nave. Rembrandt's beloved wife Saskia was
buried here in 1642 - in the place where all of her
children were baptized.
This wooden pulpit lacks the Renaissance panache of
Vinckenbrinck's masterpiece in the New Church although it
was built shortly before his (1642). By then, the money
and prestige had moved to Dam Square and its Nieuwe Kerk.
This one was done by a cabinet maker (not a sculptor)
named Jan Pietersz. The minimal carvings were done by N.
van Eyckelsbeeck.
One of the most popular areas of Oude Kerk is the
choir because it still retains about a dozen of its
Misericords or "mercy seats." These were used to give
relief to those who had to stand for long periods of
prayer with arms upraised. Not a seat, but a little
support shelf to lean against, they folded down. For some
reason, these rarely depicted Christian images; instead
they represented folklore or pagan stories. Ironically,
this secular theme allowed the Oude Kerk's misericords to
be spared by the iconoclasts. Who or why these seats
exist is unknown. The Oude Kerk never had a chapter to
pray the divine office. Based upon the clothing style
carved, these probably date from around 1480.
We've added pictures of many of the misericords to our
supplemental slide show and some are a bit risqué
to show to delicate viewers such as yourself. But here's
a tame one: "Don't try the impossible." Here a man in
elfin shoes tries to out yawn and oven door.
The Oude Kerk is near and dear to the hearts of we who
use pictures to tell stories. It's the site of the annual
presentation of the journalistic prize for photo of the
year. If you don't remember these,
click here.
If you'd like to see more of the Oude Kerk including the three stained glass windows that survived the iconoclasts as well as many more of the R-rated misericords -- (OK, maybe just PG-13) -- click here.
Koninklijk Paleis (Royal Palace) started life as city
hall - but what a city hall! When built, it was, except
for the churches, the largest building in Europe and
called the "Eighth Wonder of the World." The Netherlands
had finally achieved its independence from Spain after
the well-named Eighty Years War that ended with the
Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Shortly afterwards,
Amsterdam's equivalent of Richard Daley and Bill Gates --
Cornelis de Graeff (he was both mayor and head of the
Dutch East India Company) - decided that the town needed
architecture to support what he thought was THE dominant
city of the Western world. The result is this Jacob van
Campen structure unlike none other in Amsterdam. Here we
have classical style and German limestone where
everywhere else is lighter brick. To keep the weight from
sinking the building into the marshes, nearly 14,000
wooden piles were driven into the soft earth to provide a
foundation. The yellow sandstone from Bentheim (Germany)
grayed over time.
De Graeff thought Amsterdam to be the new Rome and so
sought an architect to deliver a building reminiscent of
that city. Artist/architect Jacob van Campen, creator of
the Dutch classical style, accomplished this with the
perfect proportions and simple pilasters we saw on the
previous slide. But at top, van Campen's Palladian
pediment explodes with baroque sculptor Artus Quellinus's
unicorns, swans, and lions. The leading sculptor of his
day, Quellinus and his studio worked 15 years on the
interior and exterior of this building. Below the bronze
statue of Peace, the pediment reliefs show a woman
representing Amsterdam. At bottom are sea creatures
representing this city's domination of the oceans.
Like the exterior, the interior shows van Campen's
classical restraint enlivened by the exuberance of
Quellinus's statuary. This ground floor room (called the
"Burgerzaal " or civic hall) is a perfectly proportioned
12 feet long, 60 wide, and 90 tall. (But these are from
the days when every town had a different measurement for
a foot. The obsolete Amsterdam foot would be 11.14 of our
inches). The Corinthian pilasters here are made of marble
and the half circles up high remind one of Palladian
windows. Van Campen was criticized for not having a
massive central stairway found in other secular monuments
of his day. His four stairways are at the edge of this
building. Each side of this room has a courtyard. The
symmetry is flawless. The chandeliers date from the early
1800s when Napoleon's loony brother made this one of his
many palaces. (It remains one today but the Royal Family
seems a bit more sane.) Click on "hide captions" a minute
so you can see the round orbs in the floor which
represent ...
...these inlaid maps of the known world - of which
Amsterdam is the center. This was the 17th century and
this tiny country led the world in trade, art, and
science. Even Mother Nature obeyed as the Dutch turned
the sea into land.
But, no surprise, the Dutch flowering in the arts
generally did not produce the best sculpture. This was
primarily because the Protestant Dutch did not let
statues into their churches - eliminating a huge market
available to sculptors in other countries. Quellinius
was, in fact, Flemish. Here we see his sad caryatids -
baroque reconstructions of a classical motif. (Rubens
influenced Quellinius; can you tell by these ladies?)
They frame reliefs in this hall of justice such as the
man at left losing his eyes as punishment for rape.
These rooms witnessed the imposition of the death
penalty and the statuary is appropriately subdued.
Around the courtyards, massive corridors lead to rooms
specializing in various civic functions such as trade,
shipping, and justice. Reliefs reinforce what goes on in
the rooms...
...for instance, we see Icarus above the room where
fallen merchants apply for bankruptcy. His wings were
held together by wax which melted when he flew too close
to the sun -- a reminder that excessive risk has
disastrous consequences (unless, of course, you work on
Wall Street in the new Amsterdam.) Too big to flail?
But in this monument to the Dutch Golden Age, their most important artist is missing. Van Campen invited the best artists to provide paintings. These included former students of Rembrandt but not the master himself. .ecalap eht fo srorrim etanro eht fo eno dniheb deppart nokiN sih htiw tdnarbmeR dnuof eW (If you find this obscure, try reading the previously sentence backwards.)
Of course in a city of canals, we'd expect a lot of
houseboats. Greater Amsterdam has about 2400 of them
including some used as hotels. But within the old (17th
century) town formed by the concentric half-rings of
canals, there are only about 750. Demand increased
dramatically during the housing shortage after WWII.
While some are made from converted boats (often 80 years
old or more), most have been built as residences - they
look like trailers and they have no engines. (See the two
at the bottom of this picture.) These typically have
hulls made of nearly maintenance-free concrete. While
many look quite elegant and may have simple gardens,
others resemble floating slums such as the ones depicted
at upper left.
Yes, the gentleman is sitting in his "living room" atop his houseboat and chatting on his cell phone. But he may have a land line below deck. Most of these "arks" have city utilities such as water and electricity but still pollute: heating is often by diesel fuel (with very low smokestacks) and until recently, most sewage flowed directly into the canal. (The canal system was designed as both a transportation and a sewer system. A system of locks routinely "flushes" the water in the canals into the North Sea at low tide.) Two years ago, city fathers stipulated that boats must connect to the sewer system. Until all do, don't drink the water.
Let's leave Amsterdam with a photo-essay on my and
their favorite form of urban transportation - the humble
bicycle. Amsterdam has more bikes than people. About a
fifth of the population gets to work that way. Given the
number of bikes parked around metro stations, some
obviously have a bike to ride from home to the subway and
another to get from the subway to their office. All ages
ride bikes and no one wears a helmet.
Like American drivers, cyclists talk on the phone and
text message. We even saw a couple on a date -- holding
hands. Most streets have a narrow lane for cars, a second
lane almost as wide for bikes, and a bumpier sidewalk for
pedestrians.
Most bikes are black but some are obviously fashion
statements. Many have a platform welded to their
frame...
.
..which lets them hold a basket - - sort of a trunk.
Note the leopard skin fenders here.
About 80,000 bikes are stolen each year and 25,000 end
up dumped in the canals.
Some suggest the Texas pickup truck...
...or maybe the paneled truck.
Some are both utilitarian and fashion statements. Note
that this one contains a Vermeer portrait.
Here's the soccer mom's SUV equivalent with luggage
rack ...
...and child's seat.
While we saw thousands of bikes, kids and their bikes
were few and far between -- other than a few infants and
some very expectant moms riding their bikes
This family is clearly into wicker and basketry.
We saw bikes parked everywhere, especially along the
canal bridges. (Amsterdam has over a 1000 canal bridges
and every one of them seems to grow bikes out of their
railings.) Near the Central train station, we saw huge
parking garages.
In fact, this is my candidate for the quintessential
Amsterdam picture: foreground -- bikes clinging to a
canal bridge; middle ground, the Weaping Tower (one of
the few remnants of the city wall); background Saint
Nicholas Church.
Let's check out some mechanized transportation. The
spare tire here reminded us of the classic Lincoln
Continental.
And on a continent of small cars, we found the
smallest in Amsterdam like the one above...
...and this.
We found this small model near our hotel. In fact, I
got her to spend the night with me. Her bumper got
scratched too. (Anything goes in Amsterdam but doesn't
necessarily stay there in these days of Web 2.0.)
Thanks for watching.
For more on Amsterdam, try our supplemental pages.
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