Amsterdam art nouveau

The American Hotel

Amsterdam isn't generally seen as a major centre for art nouveau, but in fact it has some absolute gems scattered about the compact city centre. I concocted this walk based on internet research and some buildings we had already read about or stumbled on.

We started in the south-west at the remarkable American Hotel of 1902 designed by Willem Kromhout. The side wall has some lovely decorations and the cafe has very pleasant art deco lighting and other details together with stained glass.

We followed Leidesstraat towards the centre and on the corner of the junction with Herengracht there is this building of 1904, now a very large branch of Boss.

The decoration under the eaves is delightful.

We turned left and followed Herengracht north. Three bridges later we saw on the opposite bank this jolly house of 1900 by Gerrit van Arkel on the corner of Gasthuismolensteeg.

Two bridges further on we turned left onto Leliegracht and found on the corner where it meets Keizersgracht (174-176) the Astoria building, once the headquarters of the Eeerstholland Hollandsche Levensverzekerings Bank, of 1904-5. (The spire of the Westerkerk can be seen in the background).

We carried on to Prinsengracht and turned right passing a house with some colourful tiles at 181 on the opposite bank, somewhat spoiled by graffiti.

At the end of Prinsengracht, left onto Brouwersgracht and then right brought us to the end of Haarlemmerdijk . The Movies theatre at 161 was closed, but apparently has a nice art deco interior. We enjoyed 140 which seemed new - either a reconstruction or perhaps a new creation.

A house nearby had some lovely tiles on the side wall of its porch.

At 43 Haarlemmerdijk there was a shop with beautiful windows and exterior windows. 

And at 39 this simply fantastic shop facade, which has been well restored. 

Continuing into Haarlemmersttrasse, 83 (now a Steakhouse) has a more austere curving front, more suggestive of Nancy. It dates from 1906.

At 51 the one-time shop of J J F Mollmann had a date of 1736 and beautiful tiles especially under the circular windows. Presumably the facade was given an art nouveau makeover.

There was a bit of a hiatus while we turned right and continued into Spuistraat. At number 274 there was the former Stahle bakery, happily still selling croissants.This is another work by van Arkel and dates from 1898.

At bit further on, we turned left into Spui to find the Helios building (1895-6), by van Arkel again, incongruously located opposite the Beguinhof, and now occupied by a Japanese restaurant.

The second floor has a lovely tiled design of owls and flowers.

Overall, some nice buildings with a preponderance of shops and offices.

Conditions: sometimes bright, sometimes cloudy.

Distance: about three miles.

Rating: four stars.


More information

Two sections of Klaas Schoof's website (in Dutch unfortunately) were very helpful and include many things I missed:

http://www.klaasschoof.com/amst12.html
http://www.klaasschoof.com/amst4p7p2.html


Postcript

It's not art nouveau and not very close to the route, but I just wanted to mention the Tuschinski cinema in Amstel. It was built in 1923 and has a rich art deco interior which you can take a tour round, before I think 11.30 in the morning. I have to say that from the outside this is one of the most bonkers buildings I have ever seen, but you've just got to love it.

This becomes clearer when you see the facade in more detail.

A view of Delft

The town hall

A day trip to Delft, home of Vermeer, one of our favourite painters. We learned from the Delft website that the Tourist Office had a leaflet describing a walk around Old Delft and we headed straight there to buy it. It was easily the best such leaflet, in fact more of a booklet, I have ever seen.

We started in the nearby Market Square. It is a large rectangular space with the Town Hall at one end: this is the very harmonious Renaissance building in the picture above. The unusual thing about it is that is built around the 13th century gothic Earl's Tower you can see at the back. The tower was used as a prison.

At the other end of the square is the Niewe Kerk, a colossally tall building of 1383-1510. It has in fact the second highest spire in the Netherlands (that of Utrecht Cathedral is the highest).

You leave the square at the church end and pass the twin spires of the Maria van Jesse Roman Catholic church to reach the Beestenmarkt. Before it became the animal market it was the site of a monastery. A funky statue commemorates its former role.

Now we took an optional loop to see the Oostpoort (Eastgate). This led along quiet streets beside quiet canals. Many of the houses had coloured glass in some of the windows. This
beautiful art nouveau pattern caught my eye.

The Oostpoort is a lovely sight from the other side of the Rijn-Schie canal. It dates from about 1400 and is the only one of the eight city gates to survive.

We enjoyed the view back towards the Niewe Kerk.

Then we followed the bank of the Rijn-Schie canal to see the Klaeuwshofje, an almshouse with a very plain exterior.

We have seen others in Amsterdam, but this was the first time we were able to see the courtyard garden which is a normal feature.

The loop took us back to the Beestenmarkt and then round the back of the Niewe Kerk and into the Market square again. We went to the back of the Town Hall to see the medieval Waag (municipal weighing house).

A glance to the left revealed this fabulous art nouveau building, not mentioned in the guide (presumably it is not historic enough), in Oude Langedyjk, the street where Vermeer lived from 1660.

We then walked to to other end of the street to see a beautiful house of 1598 with the traditional stepped gable. This was the official start of the walk.

Now it was time to embark on a second optional loop, so we walked down the strangely named street of Oude (Old) Delft, either side of a quiet canal and full of grand houses, some of which were once breweries. The goal of this excursion was to see the spot where Vermeer painted his great View of Delft. First we passed the imposing Armamentarium, once the artillery stores of the states of Holland and West Friesland, now the Army museum.

Eventually you reach the Rijn-Schie canal again and can stand at Vermeer's vantage point. This is how it looked when Vermeer painted it. The Niewe Kerk is now the only recognisable element. The Rotterdam gate on the right is not unlike the Oostpoort we saw earlier.

For my picture, I moved my focus a bit to the right, because the buildings now on the left were fearfully dull. I suppose it is still a nice enough view.

We headed back into the centre along a parallel route and then rejoined Oude Delft to go north towards the Oude Kerk. The spire was built 1325-50 and is indeed leaning, as it appears. In fact, rather like the leaning tower of Pisa, it began to subside before it was even finished.

Just before you reach the Oude Kerk, you pass the attractive small church of St Hippolyte (1400).

To one side of the Oude Kerk is the former convent of St Agnes, also of about 1400. During the Dutch reformation, in 1572, William of Orange moved here and the building became known as the Prinsenhof. Every Dutchman knows that William was murdered here in 1584: you can still see the bullet holes. This is the view from the garden.

Just a little further on is the gateway to the Bagijnhof - we saw its equivalent in Amsterdam two days ago. Beguines were women who helped the poor and lived good lives, but without actually taking the vows of nuns. This is where they lived.

And amazingly when you walk through to other entrance, reaching the line of the old city walls, you turn right and see ... a windmill! It used be situated on the wall and dates back to 1728. This was a great point to mentally finish the walk. Only finding somewhere for lunch in the town centre and walking back to the station remained.

Conditions: warm and sunny.

Distance: about 4 miles.

Rating: five stars.

Amsterdam: East to West

Thoas Swallowtail

After an extremely wet morning, we made our way to the zoo (Artis - Natura Artis Magistra, in full) to enjoy the butterfly pavilion in the dry - I was thrilled to get a reasonable picture of a Thoas Swallowtail. This post describes the walk back when mercifully the rain had finally stopped.

Just along Henri Polklaan street from the zoo is de Burcht (1899), once the headquarters of the General Dutch Diamond Workers Union.

It was designed by H P Berlage and part of his brief was to create a defensible building that could be used as a refuge during a strike. The building's real glory is its interior, but unfortunately this was not one of its open days.

After going through the Wertheim Park we passed the massive Portugese Synogogue, inaugurated in 1675. It apparently inspired the Bevis Marks synagogue in London which I saw on a walk around the City East earlier this year.

 Jodenbreestraat brought us to Rembrant's House, now of course a museum. The artist lived and worked here from 1639 to 1656.

Then, to the left there was an excellent view of the tower of the Zuiderkerk, dating from 1612. 

We now turned left down Kloveniersburgwal and crossed the Amstel to see the Munttoren. The base of the tower formed part of a gate in the city walks and survived a fire in 1618. The clock tower was added later in the century. It gets its name from the Mint being temporarily housed there during the French occupation in 1673.

We headed up the pedestrianised Kalverstraat, the only cycle-free street we have yet seen, and turned left into Spui to find the Begijnhof. This was originally founded in 1346 as a sanctuary for the Begijntes, a lay Catholic sisterhood.

There are only two entrances, one of which is the small door in the building to the left.

You go through a tiled arched passageway.

Inside it is like a village green surrounded on all sides by terraced houses. One of these is the oldest surviving house in the city.

And there is a church at one end of the green: the 15th century English Church.

We finished this walk behind Dam Square where there is the enormous and imposing former Post Office building, now a shopping mall.

Conditions: dull at first, becoming  brighter.

Distance: about 2 miles.

Rating: four stars.

Amsterdam centrum

 The Koninklijk Palace

We have just arrived in Amsterdam for a short break and we decided on a short tour of the city centre to begin to orientate ourselves. We headed off from our hotel on Herengracht towards Dam Square. To be honest it is not a very impressive city centre square. The main building is the Koninklijk Palace, which we thought looked like a large city hall. And wonderfully, it was in fact built as the city hall in the mid-17th century by architect Jacob van Compen, only becoming a royal palace in 1808 when Napoleon's brother Louis was installed as ruler of the Nederlands. It has been state property since 1936, but is still apparently occasionally used by the royals.

Wedged into a corner of the square is the Niewe Kerk (New Church).

This dates from the 14th century, but has been destroyed by fire several times and also restored more than once.

Then were walked up Damrak, a wide Oxford Street-like road. On the right is the extraordinary former Stock Exchange building, the work of the great Dutch architect H P Berlage. It was built in 1903 and was remarkable for its time. The shallow relief sculptures for instance anticipate art deco by twenty years.The interior is evidently remarkable, but unfortunately we were unable to to get in to see it.

At the head of the street is the wonderful Centraal station of 1889, which effectively cuts Amsterdam off from the sea. It was built on three artificial islands. It now offers an incredible variety of modes of transport apart from rail: metro, water cruise, tram, bus, taxi, bicycle.

From here we found our way studiously along the edge of the famous red light district to the Oude Kerk, whose skyline presented an interesting mix of stone and brick gables topped by a splendid tower of 1565. The present structure dates from the 14th century and grew substantially over the centuries. The interior seemed rather incoherent to us.

We then briefly followed Zeedijk, originally the location of a 14th century dike, but now the centre of Amsterdam's small Chinatown, to reach Schreierstoren. This translates as Weepers' Tower and dates from 1480. It was once part of the city wall and was one of the few bits not demolished as the city expanded.

Now we headed south east to the Montelbanstoren, which can be seen in the background in the picture above. This dates from 1512 and stood outside the city wall as a defensive fortification.

The next stop was the Niewemarkt square. Here stands the wonderful many-towered Waag, originally a city gate (built in 1488) and later (1617) a public weigh house.

Finally, we crossed a couple of the draw bridges which Holland is famous for. The first one had the true-love padlcocks that we saw in Paris and which seem to have become a global phenomenon.

Three quick impressions: there are an extraordinary number of attractive buildings lining the canals, many of the older ones have a pronounced lean forwards and boy is the centre crowded. I later discovered that the forward tilt was by design, to make it easier to get stuff up to the top storey by means of an external hoist. The extent of the forward projection was limited by law.

Conditions: sunny and fairly warm until the end.

Distance: 3 miles.

Rating: four stars.