At the beginning of the twentieth century the city of Amsterdam was, like many major European cities, under the spell of progress. Unlike in for instance Paris or Budapest however, the city’s reforms did not take the shape of the massive tearing down and rebuilding of the centre.
Like a lot of things in Amsterdam the plans were quite ambitious in one sense but modest in another. As a result, the 17th century city centre is, to this very day, in almost the same condition as it has been since it was built.
The first changes that did take place were legislative: in 1901 the government passed Housing-Law. Especially the quality of the housing for low-income families had to be increased drastically. About twenty years after the finishing of the terribly poorly constructed neighborhood “De Pijp”, a number of new blocks for the “working man” were built by graduates from the Amsterdam School of architecture (”Amsterdamse School”), most notoriously Michel de Klerk.
Ambitious in its goals, sturdy housing for family of all incomes, but modest in its implementation, it is tucked away at the border of the city. In the Spaarndammer neighborhood (”Spaarndammerbuurt”), above the Westerpark, you will find three big complexes that can be rightly described as palaces for the working man. They are worth visiting.
The neighborhood is a residential area, and apart from a big museum, the old buildings are still housing families or small shops. There is hardly anything that will remind you that you are still in one of the most touristic cities of the world, yet the brick buildings you find there are reminiscent of Gaudi, created with unbridled imagination.
The entire city blocks flow into a whole that is even more organic than you will find in the “Art Nouveau” cityscapes of Budapest, Paris or Brussels. Especially the block in which “Museum ‘t Schip” (a museum for the architecture of the Amsterdamse School) is located seems to have grown, or cast out of stone, rather than constructed by piling brick after brick on top of each other.
Go there if you want to be surprised by stunning architecture, or if you are in the neighborhood of the Westerpark or the Westergasfabriek (see this article). If you do, bear in mind that the buildings were foremost meant to provide residence to people with little money, and that they are still doing so. This is applied art at its finest.
Details about this spot
Museum ‘t Ship | Art & culture | Museum € 2.50
Spaarndammerplantsoen 140 | Westerpark (area map) | +31204182885
18:00 - 01:00 daily
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