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Historic Amsterdam: Dam to the Jordaan

Netherlands · 9 stories · 45–75 min

From the dam that named the city to the Jordaan — a palace on 13,659 piles, a courtyard of women without vows, and a painter buried somewhere nobody wrote down.

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Stories along the way

  1. 1. The Dam That Named a CityBegin with the least romantic object imaginable: a wall of earth across a river. Around twelve seventy, people here built a dam across the Amstel to keep the water where they…
  2. 2. Underground History at Rokin StationImagine stepping onto an escalator and riding downward into the earth for two and a half full minutes before your feet even reach the platform. That is the daily reality at Rokin…
  3. 3. The War Queen on HorsebackPicture a city raising its own funds to honor a monarch. In 1964, the Amsterdam Contact Group of Women’s Organisations rallied the public to pay for a monument to Queen…
  4. 4. The Courtyard That Argues With ItselfStep through the doorway off the Spui and the noise stops, almost comically fast. This is the Begijnhof: a lawn, a ring of houses, and several centuries of a quietly radical idea.…
  5. 5. The Saga of the SnakehouseOn a chilly day in March 1983, the Amsterdam police had their hands entirely full with a rowdy Ajax football match. Taking full advantage of the distraction, two hundred squatters…
  6. 6. Amsterdam's Architectural Shape-ShifterWhen you look at the Apollohal, you’re looking at a true shape-shifter in the story of Amsterdam sports. Back when it first opened in 1934, it wasn’t built for basketball at all.…
  7. 7. Rembrandt Is In Here SomewhereThe Westerkerk went up between sixteen twenty and sixteen thirty-one, and it is still the largest church in Amsterdam. The tower beside it — the Westertoren, finished in sixteen…
  8. 8. A City Standing on TimberThree great arcs of water, one inside the other: Herengracht, Keizersgracht, Prinsengracht. It looks like something that grew. It is in fact one of the most deliberate pieces of…
  9. 9. The Poor Quarter That Got ExpensiveYou have crossed a line. The canal ring behind you was built for merchants; the Jordaan, laid out alongside it, was built for the people who made the merchants' world work —…