Amsterdam, then & now

amsterdam, then & now


2 | amsterdam marketing

4 City built on trade and tolerance: What defines Amsterdam.

7 A Golden Age: A bit of 17th century history and it’s heritage.

8 The epicentre of European counterculture: The liberal legacy.

11 Two wheels good: The bikes and their owners.

12 Neighbourhood watch: Centre, Oost, West, Zuid, Noord.

15 Living the dream: To live and work here.

16 An evergreen cultural life: The cultural life in 10 icons.

20 Get out of town: Haarlem & beaches, Old Holland, flowers, castles.

amsterdam marketing | 3


Stately 17th-century houses sit seamlessly beside cutting-edge contemporary

architecture, in a compact capital with more bikes than

people, more nationalities than New York, more canals

than Venice and more world-class museums than pretty

much anywhere. Welcome to

Amsterdam.text: Toby Main



Wherever you are in Amsterdam, look around and try to imagine the scene a thousand years ago. What would there be in place of the meticulously lain cobbles and postcard-perfect bridges? Chances are, there would be little more than a boggy wasteland. One of the city’s many famous landmarks would be recognisable, however: namely, the Amstel River. Nothing much of note happened here until around the 12th century, when intrep-id people from the North came floating down the river in hollowed-out logs. The ground being too soggy to build on, they dug a structure of dykes and ditches – the very first of which is commemorated by Dam square. These enterprising ‘Aems-telledammers’, as they became known, be-gan levying toll money from passing beer and herring traders, and quickly became expert boat builders themselves, attract-ing yet more attention to the emerging town.

In 1275, Count Floris of Holland formal-ised these activities by granting special toll privileges to the merchant town, and in 1300 Amsterdam got its first charter. It was also around this time that the first church – the core of today’s Oude Kerk – was consecrated.As the historian Fred Feddes notes in the introduction to his book A Millennium of Amsterdam, the Amstel was never going to be a body of water to rival the Thames or the Danube. It wasn’t even the most im-pressive waterway in this land, and yet the rights and privileges awarded to the city of Amsterdam ensured that it would be-come by far the most important. The spirit of commerce has always played a crucial role in shaping Amsterdam, which is a city built on trade like no other. What’s more, the importance of trade ensured a certain degree of religious freedom, nurturing the pragmatic tolerance for which Amsterdam is still famed. By accepting differences where other societies tried to quash them, Amsterdam turned diversity to its advan-tage, fuelling an economic miracle that would make it the envy of Europe.

A city built on trade and tolerance:What defines Amsterdam.

‘This backwater town […]

remains the world’s laboratory

of liberalism’ – London’s

Financial Times, October 2013

Dutch East India Company (VOC) – the fi rst multinational in the world



The whole of what’s now known as ‘the Netherlands’ used to be part of the Span-ish empire, but in 1581 the northernmost Dutch provinces declared independence, mainly out of a desire to practice Protes-tantism, which was strictly forbidden by the Catholic Spanish. It was at this point that religious tolerance was enshrined in the constitution of the new Dutch Republic, and its capital soon became known as a refuge for Protestants and also Jews, who were being persecuted or oppressed in many parts of the world. Many of these incomers were successful merchants, and the wealth and expertise that they brought with them benefitted the Republic materially. Spanish Jews moved their goods and operations here and main-tained foreign trading relationships with, among other places, Morocco and the Levant. New trade missions to India proved a huge commercial success, and in 1602 the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC) was founded. The city of Amsterdam had a majority share in the organisation, which was to become the first multinational com-pany in the world, financed by the sale of shares that in turn established the world’s first modern stock exchange. The compa-ny acquired the Dutch monopoly on Asian trade, and the Dutch provinces became the most important financial centre of Northern Europe. During this period, the city of Amsterdam underwent two massive urban expansions, and for the first time both functionality and aesthetics were taken into consideration

during the planning stages. The results were the now-famous Canal Belt – prime real estate whose grand houses were status symbols for the very wealthiest merchants – and the Jordaan district, with its modest dwellings for an expanding working class. Rich Amsterdammers soon began to demonstrate concern for the less fortunate and established institutions to care for the poor, the sick and the orphaned.

Of course, the sign that you’d really ‘made it’ as a 17th-century merchant was a fab-ulous painting or two, and the art market flourished during this time. Lavish still life paintings such as those hanging in the Rijksmuseum (www.rijksmuseum.nl) evoked the rich abundance of life during the Golden Age, depicting a diverse array of exotic fruits, flowers and game – much of it straight off the VOC boats. Sculptures were commissioned all over town for gov-ernment buildings, private dwellings (often adorning house facades) and the exteriors of churches. Within just 30 years, Amster-dam became a thriving cultural centre, leav-ing a legacy of respected painters includ-ing Johannes Vermeer, Jan Steen and, of course, Rembrandt van Rijn. Science and philosophy also benefitted from Amsterdam’s climate of tolerance. Books concerning topics that might have been deemed too controversial elsewhere were printed here and covertly exported abroad. Amsterdam was at once Europe’s importer of treasures and its factory of ideas.

A Golden Age:A bit of 17th century history and it’s heritage.



In its ‘Amsterdam DNA’ exhibit, the Am-sterdam Museum (www.amsterdammuse-um.nl) lists the city’s defining ingredients as follows: enterprise, free thinking, crea-tivity and citizenship. These characteristics found their heyday during the Golden Age, of course, but they saw a resurgence under very different circumstances in the 1960s, when a host of disparate counter-cultural movements earned Amsterdam a reputation as the cradle of youthful revolt and a new nickname: the magisch centrum (magic centre) of Europe. Foremost amongst these movements were the Provos. So-called because their aim was to provoke a violent or heavy-handed response from the police through non-vio-lent means, the Provos saw themselves as shattering the self-righteousness of those in power. Their ‘happenings’ – focused in Amsterdam around Het Lieverdje, the famous statue of a street urchin on the square at Spui – were a bizarre mixture of absurdity and activism. Provos mocked the establishment’s ignorance regarding of marijuana, for example, by smoking tea-filled ‘joints’ in the hopes of getting wrongfully arrested. The Provos’ political wing gained a seat on Amsterdam’s city council and, under the umbrella term ‘White Plans’, set about making the city a nicer place to live.

The most famous of these proposals was the White Bicycle Plan, which advocated closing Amsterdam to all motor vehicles and replacing them with electric taxis and a fleet of publicly owned, free-to-use bicycles. Rejected at the time as unwork-able, the plan proved to be simply ahead of its time, and has since been a source of inspiration for bike-sharing schemes worldwide. Officially, the Provo movement ended in 1967 but its legacy has been profound and long lasting. Various Provo policies lived way beyond the movement’s short lifespan – including the squatting of empty build-ings, which flourished all over Amsterdam until 2010, when it was outlawed.By the end of the 1960s, the Amsterdam authorities had begun to tolerate prosti-tution, and the red lights of the sex trade, reflected in the waters of some of the oldest stretches of canals in the city, had become something of a tourist attraction. In 1973, a first ‘coffeeshop’ appeared on the Vijzelgracht (Mellow Yellow), buying and selling cannabis within the legally tolerated limits. According to historian Russell Shorto, the decades from the 1950s through the 1990s can be regarded as a new golden age, when the city threw off the remaining influences of the Church and other conservative structures and transformed itself into the 20th-century version of a liberal capital or, as Shorto puts it: ‘a laboratory for new ideas, from gay rights to gay marriage, from free love to free bicycles’.

The epicentre of European counterculture: The liberal legacy.

‘a laboratory for new ideas, from gay rights to gay

marriage, from free love to free

bicycles’

Today, there are some 400 kilometres of designated bicycle paths crisscrossing the city



In case anyone hadn’t noticed, in Amster-dam the humble bike is the default mode of transport for the butcher, the stock-broker and even the supermodel. Ridden by royalty and riffraff alike, the bicycle is Amsterdam’s great social leveller, with more than 50 per cent of all inner-city jour-neys happening on two wheels. You may be able to glance at an Amsterdammer’s clothes, their postcode or their curtains and make a judgement about their social status or heritage. But their bike? That’s another story. As a general rule, one per-son’s bike will look much like the next bike – that is, pretty scruffy. It’s a widely quoted fact that there are more bikes in Amsterdam than there are people. Consequently, a typical Amster-dam street scene comprises countless cyclists either heading to or from work, transporting young children to school in massive barrow-like carts (bakfiets) and carrying everything from groceries to bulky furniture with the greatest of ease. It can seem to outsiders like cycling is some-how built into the Dutch DNA. In reality, though, it’s a hard-won combination of urban planning and people power.

The popularity of cycling in Amsterdam is undoubtedly aided by the fact that Amsterdam is flat, compact and densely populated. But the investment in cycling infrastructure only began in earnest in the 1970s following a post-war car boom that had led to unacceptably high death rates for cyclists.Today, there are some 400 kilometres of designated bicycle paths crisscrossing the city. You can even bike straight through the Rijksmuseum, should you feel like it. A 2011 study of commuter happiness by the Portland State University found that those who travel by bike are simply hap-pier than people who drive or take public transport – which goes some way to ex-plain why Amsterdam has a permanent smile on its face.

Two wheels good: The bikes and their owners.



Cycling’s popularity is greatly helped, of course, by the fact that there’s so much to look at beyond the handlebars. Pick up a postcard in Amsterdam and chances are it’ll depict the magnificent Canal Ring or the ancient backstreets of the Red Light District. And yet there’s so much more be-sides, and those who venture beyond the city centre are amply rewarded. Take Oost (East), for example. Conceived in the 19th century to combine all the advantages of country life with the mod-ern conveniences of the city, Amsterdam’s east end is strikingly green and spacious, and contains the city’s 19th-century zoo and botanical gardens. At the other end of town, the neighbour-hood now known as the Oud-West was once the zone designated for ‘flammable industry’. Noisy sawmills flourished here amid the marshes, until the area was ear-marked for a more pressing purpose in the late 19th century: housing Amsterdam’s booming labour force. Simple, four-floor terraced houses with steep staircases were thrown up in order to accommodate the maximum number of workers.

The vast majority of the neighbourhood’s first inhabitants were working class, and so the buildings of the Oud-West (Old West) are mostly split into apartments and have few of the ostentatious flourishes that characterise the grand homes of the Canal Belt. Although it emerged from the same marshland, the fragrant Zuid (South) on the other, pricier, side of Amsterdam’s most famous green space, the Vondelpark, has always been a much more extravagant affair. Here, impressive manor houses and high-end boutiques abound. Officially, the trendy De Pijp is also part of Amsterdam Zuid district. De Pijp (literally, ‘the pipe’) used to be nicknamed the Latin Quarter because it was home to so many poor artists and scruffy students, but it’s smart-ened up its act significantly over the past decade, and now young families rub shoul-ders with students and bohemian types.Perhaps the city’s most exciting reinven-tion, though, is happening right now, north of the IJ (that body of water be-hind Central Station). Once considered a blustery and undesirable place to live, Amsterdam-Noord has become a destina-tion for youth brands such as MTV since heavy industry largely vacated the area. A smorgasbord of hip new restaurants, bars, hotels and shops have followed suit, many sitting pretty on the IJ-facing waterfront.

Neighbourhood watch: Centre, Oost, West, Zuid, Noord.

There’s so much more to

Amsterdam besides the

magnifi cent Canal Ring or

backstreets of the Red Light District

There were some 180 different nationalities co-existing peacefully and happily here in Amsterdam

Spaces - Photo: Mike Roelofs



The Netherlands has the distinction of being the most multilingual society in Europe. Besides being fluent in English, many Dutch speak German as well, and many also speak some French and Span-ish. At the last count, there were some 180 different nationalities co-existing peacefully and happily here in Amsterdam – that’s more than in Manhattan, which has a population ten times that of Amsterdam. Just as in the Golden Age, Amsterdam today is an exciting spectacle of humanity and creative industry. As city Mayor Eber-hard van der Laan says, ‘What we lack in terms of size, we make up for through […] openness and accessibility. Amsterdam excels as a melting pot of unique spirits from diverse backgrounds, who meet from all corners of the city and push each other to break with convention and step outside the box.’Regardless of their origins, Amsterdam-mers typically feel a great sense of civic pride in their city, and a deep appreciation of the quality of life it offers. Frequently characterised as ‘gezelligheid’ – a much-discussed term more easily ex-perienced than described, which roughly approximates a cosy sense of wellbeing – this distinctly Dutch vibe thrives in cosy cafés and convivial bars.

From the painters who dot the canals, capturing the city’s unique charm to the authors of international bestselling novels such as The Miniaturist, Amsterdam con-tinues to beguile artists with its beauty and the sense that history is tangible here as in few other cities. In the introduction to his book Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City, Russell Shorto writes of ‘the mysterious pleasure you feel climbing into the attic of the former West India Company warehouse, where clotted old beams still mildly reek of the tobacco leaves that were packed into the space four centuries ago, an odour that evokes the exploitation and unfathomable adven-ture that brought our world into being.’

Living the dream: To live and work here.



It’s not just about bikes and buildings, of course. There’s great healthcare and edu-cation, and plenty of culture and entertain-ment. Amsterdam hosts in excess of 300 festi-vals every year, from the Jordaan Festi-val – which celebrates the music and café culture of one of Amsterdam’s best-loved neighbourhoods – to unmissable, large-scale events such as King’s Day and the legendary Amsterdam Gay Pride, which has the accolade of being the only gay pride parade in the world to take place on water.And whether you’re indulging in a last-minute weekend getaway or bedding down for the trip of a lifetime, filling your cultural agenda is never an issue in Am-sterdam. There are world-class museums, international theatre performances, live music and open-air spectacles on practi-cally every corner. Here’s just a flavour of what’s on offer. For more details, pick up a copy of the current Amsterdam magazine, A-mag.

An evergreen cultural life:The cultural life in 10 icons.

ANNE FRANK HOUSEPrinsengracht 263 is where Anne Frank lived in hiding with her family for more than two years during World War II. Now converted into a museum, it contains a sobering exhibition about the persecution of the Jews and persecution in a wider context. www.annefrank.org

EYE FILM INSTITUTECinematography museum home to an in-ternationally renowned collection of films covering the whole history of cinema, from the first silent movies to the latest contemporary productions. www.eyefilm.nl

RIJKSMUSEUMAfter a decade of unprecedented renova-tion, the Rijksmuseum finally showed off its new (and old) look in April 2013. Visit the state museum and embark on a jour-ney through Dutch art and history from the Middle Ages and Renaissance right up until the 20th century. A not-to-be-missed experience. www.rijksmuseum.nl

There are world-class museums,

international theatre

performances, live music

and open-air spectacles on

practically every corner

Het Scheepvaartmuseum



HET GRACHTENHUISA tribute to the Canal District, Het Gracht-enhuis is housed in a historic house, with multimedia exhibits showing how the en-gineering marvel was built on swampland during 17th-century city expansion. www.hetgrachtenhuis.nl

STEDELIJK MUSEUMThe modern art museum’s permanent collection is now on display in the beauti-fully restored historical building, with fixed spots for highlights such as ‘The Beanery’ by Edward Kienholz and works by Willem de Kooning and Andy Warhol. Half of the ground floor is reserved for the best piec-es from the design collection. www.stedelijk.nl

TROPENMUSEUMThe ‘Museum of the Tropics’ has eight geographically themed permanent exhibi-tions and an ongoing series of temporary presentations, including both modern and traditional visual arts and photographic work. http://tropenmuseum.nl

ARTIS ROYAL ZOOAdmire the tropical fish in the Aquarium and travel through time in the Planetar-ium. See giraffes galloping amongst the zebras, springboks, oryx and wildebeests. Surround yourself with hundreds of flut-tering butterflies in the Butterfly Pavilion or stroll through the historical park with its centuries-old trees and a multitude of plants. www.artis.nl

REMBRANDTHUISThe house that Rembrandt called home for nearly 20 years boasts an impressive collection of drawings and paintings from the Old Master himself as well as by his contemporaries. The Rembrandthuis is also home to 290 of Rembrandt’s etch-ings – a near-complete collection – and an alternating selection is on permanent display. www.rembrandthuis.nl

HET SCHEEPVAARTMUSEUMThe National Maritime Museum comprises a series of small exhibits exploring various elements of maritime life. Moored out-side is the Amsterdam, an exact replica of a famous 17th-century Dutch East India Company ship. www.hetscheepvaartmuseum.nl

ROYAL PALACEThe Koninklijk Paleis on Dam square is one of three palaces still in use by the Dutch royal family. When it’s not being used for state visits, award ceremonies and other official receptions, it’s open to the public. Visitors can explore the magnificent interi-or and discover the building’s rich history. www.paleisamsterdam.nl

Anne Frank HuisEye Film InstitutePhoto: Iwan Baan

RijksmuseumPhoto: Jannes Linders

Het GrachtenhuisPhoto: Thijs Wolzak

Artis Royal ZooPhoto: Ronald van Weeren

Stedelijk Museum Herman van Heusden

Rembrandthuis

Tropenmuseum

Royal Palace - Photo: Hesmerg



In springtime, those with window seats on flights coming into Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport will catch a glimpse of western Holland’s bold strips of coloured tulips. At the centre of this bulb region, in Lisse, lies the Keukenhof (www.keukenhof.nl), the world’s largest flower garden, which bursts into a kaleidoscope of colour be-tween mid-March and mid-May. It’s acces-sible from Amsterdam by public transport in a little over an hour.How this small nation with little natural light became the world’s leading supplier of fresh flowers is nothing short of a mir-acle, but centuries before the words ‘dot’ and ‘com’ were ever strung together, the price of tulip bulbs reached canal-house levels and led to the bursting of the world’s first speculative bubble in 1637. Another economic term – the Dutch auc-tion – originates from the country’s flower sales technique. At FloraHolland Aalsmeer (www.floraholland.com), the world’s largest flower auction, visitors can see it in action: a clock counts down so the price is lowered until a buyer is found.

As the Netherlands blossomed during its Golden Age, Amsterdam’s merchant class sought novel ways to spend its wealth and leisure time. In summer, the city’s elite would leave their primary residences by the stinking canals and retreat to ex-travagant castles and country estates on the banks of the rivers Amstel and Vecht, many of which can still be visited today, by boat or by bicycle. And while these historical river estates were purely recreational, the castles of fortified towns such as Muiden, Naarden and Weesp that comprise the UNESCO- protected Defence Line of Amsterdam were once the city’s first line of resistance. Today this 135-kilometre-long ring of fortifications offers a fascinating and vivid glimpse into medieval times and more recent military history. The Dutch Fortress Museum (www.vestingmuseum.nl), in Naarden, brings the story of these forti-fied towns to life. If you’re looking for a more urban city es-cape, elegant Haarlem bears testimony to the pomp and splendour the Golden Age brought to North Holland. From its origins as a tenth-century toll post, Amsterdam’s close neighbour quickly became the most important inland port after the capital, and in spite of turbulent times following the Spanish invasion in 1572, the city soared in the 17th century, becoming a centre for arts and culture.

Get out of town: Haarlem & beaches, Old Holland, flowers, castles.

To truly experience Amsterdam be

sure to head out beyond the borders of the

city centre and discover

much more

There’s more to Amsterdam than you may think



If you take the 15-minute train journey from Amsterdam to Haarlem the histo-ry lesson begins the moment you arrive. The only Dutch railway station in the Jugendstil (art nouveau style), it was constructed in 1906 and is characterised by tiled panels, decorative ironwork and a striking wooden signal house. It’s a fitting introduction to a city that’s teeming with exceptionally rich history. There are 4,000 municipal and national listed monuments in Haarlem, many of them in the well-pre-served historic city centre and within easy walking distance of one another. Just a few minutes down the road, Hol-land’s North Sea beaches, water-sports Mecca IJmuiden aan Zee and bustling Zandvoort aan Zee – not to mention the protected dune landscape – offer a wel-come contrast.If Haarlem bears testimony to the thriving culture of the Dutch Golden Age, North Holland’s industrial history is captured in microcosm in the Zaan region. When Amsterdam’s craft guilds opposed the construction of windmills within the city limits in the 17th century, more than 1,000 were built here instead. Today, this area is a magnificent piece of perfectly preserved industrial heritage.

Wood was sawn and sails and ropes were made in these mills. Ships were built in the nearby docks, and the region devel-oped into the centre of shipbuilding in 17th-century Europe – Peter the Great even came here to learn the craft (see the preserved house where he stayed; www.zaansmuseum.nl). The goods these ships brought back from their voyages – mustard, cocoa, wood, paint and pa-per – were processed here too. This laid the foundation for rapid industrialisation in the 19th century along the River Zaan. As shipbuilding was eclipsed by the food industry, Zaandam came to be nicknamed ‘the larder of the Netherlands’. The perfectly preserved museum village Zaanse Schans (www.dezaanseschans.nl) is a glimpse into 18th- and 19th-century industrial Holland, just 30 minutes from Amsterdam.

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