Amsterdam [antikvár]

Canals, holding the reflections of tall gabled houses, arched bridges and orderly-planted, carefully-tended trees, furnish many of the essential images conjured by Amsterdam in the stranger and carried home by the visitor. The central part of the city, from which these images are drawn, is, largely, a meticulously preserved version of the outlines of Amsterdam in the 17th century.The shape these visually pleasing outlines take is in fact very functional, dictated by the demands of the trade which was the building force of Amsterdam. The city originated as a small fishing settlement along the banks of the Amstel River, and, by the beginning of the 16 th century, had developed into a walled city of about 12,000 inhabitants. This early Amsterdam lay in an ideal position to build up a thriving trade with the Baltic countries in grain, furs and timber, and with France and Portugal in spices, wine and salt.More far-flung merchant ventures were consolidated in 1602, when the Dutch East India Company -the V.O.C. - was formed, 60 per cent of its capital being provided by companies in Amsterdam. In the enthusiasm and grand confidence which accompanied its creation, the VO.C. was granted a trading monopoly for all the world east of the Cape of Good Hope, and established bases, for example, in the East Indies, India, the Cape of Good Hope and Japan, making huge profits from trade in 'fine Indian wares of nutmeg, cloves, mace, cinnamon and pepper linens, silks, fluids, gums, dyes, porcelain and all other merchandise.'This world-wide network of successful trade brought tremendous pressures of population and commercial activity to the old medieval city, and, by 1562, it was overcrowded and beset by disreputable slums outside the walls. To overcome these problems, Amsterdam's enterprising Municipal Council resolved to remodel their city to fit its supreme function as a centre of sea trade. At the end of the 16th century, 1,336 acres were assigned to be the site of the new city development, and a plan was drawn up designed to provide housing for merchants and immigrants, and to display Amsterdam's wealth and commercial power.Projected new canals were added to the old Singelgracht, extending Amsterdam's waterfront to cater for the volume of trade and to ease the movement of heavy, bulky goods through the city. The 17th-century canal pattern is still intact in the three wide semicircles of the Herengracht, the Keizersgracht and the Prinsengracht, their concentric curves interlinked by numerous minor, radial canals. Built in straight sections, with angular turns to aid their navigation by barge, more than 600 of the now-familiar brick-lined canals were dug in a period of great, concentrated labour, reaching completion in 1663.The necessity for land transport and the movement of pedestrians was not forgotten in this grand, water-orientated design, and more than 200 bridges were built in quick succession to the canals. Many of these original, hump-back structures still adorn the waterways, and their construction set the pattern for future centuries of bridge building.The distinctively tall, narrow canalside houses known to today's visitor were also shaped by the all-pervading demands of trade. The master-plan of the Municipal Council assigned the plots bordering main canals to the city's wealthy merchants, and, to ensure that each acquired a measure of canal frontage, decreed that no house be more than 3 windows' width - roughly 26 feet. Later eased to allow for 5 windows' width, these restrictions forced merchants to extend their mansions upwards to 4 storeys and backwards for up to 180 feet to recover the capacity they had lost to the requirements of trade.Municipal limitations on the size, shape and even the building materials of their canalside houses encouraged merchants to indulge in modest ostentations, prompting them to imaginative flourishes of individuality in the shaping of the high gables - whether stepped, bell-shaped, or adorned with ornate cornices -; in brickwork decorated with sculptures; in the colourful, bas-relief gable plaques depicting the owner's occupation or character, even in the disguising of the functional hoisting beam in fanciful designs.So much of this purpose-built trade city of the 17th century has survived intact, initially because of the decline in Amsterdam's fortunes during the industrial revolution, when the city could not afford any redevelopment. When her trade revived this century, Amsterdam's people had come to value their antique city, and today the work of ardent conservationists and city legislation has ensured that the exteriors of many 17th-century buildings, and their surroundings of canals, bridges and tree-lined avenues, have been preserved intact. Today, canal-side houses may be converted inside for use as offices, restaurants, art galleries or museums, and still constitute very much the living centre of Amsterdam.Facing page: the Keukenhof Gardens in Lisse, southwest of Amsterdam.