Amsterdam Architecture: Gables, Amsterdam School and Modern Icons

How to read a canal house facade

The typical canal house is narrow, deep and tall. Plots laid out during the 17th-century expansions were expensive along the water, so houses grew upwards and backwards rather than sideways. The top of the facade, the gable (gevel in Dutch), lets you roughly date a building:

• Stepped gable (trapgevel): a staircase of bricks on either side of the top. It replaced pointed wooden gables between about 1600 and 1665. Only around a hundred originals survive; the three houses at Bloemgracht 87-91, dated 1642, are a well-known example.
• Spout gable (tuitgevel): a pointed top with small side wings. It is found mainly on warehouses, from about 1620 to 1720.
• Neck gable (halsgevel): a rectangular top flanked by sandstone scrolls, built from about 1640 to 1780, peaking in the first half of the 18th century.
• Bell gable (klokgevel): a rounded, bell-shaped top, from about 1660 to 1790, often decorated with garlands in the 17th century and taller in the 18th.
• Cornice facade (lijstgevel): a straight facade topped by a horizontal cornice across its full width. It appeared around 1625 and remained in use over the following centuries.

Below the gable juts the hoisting beam (hijsbalk) with its hook: since staircases were steep and narrow, furniture and goods were hauled up the outside and brought in through the windows. Many facades therefore lean forward on purpose ("op vlucht") so that loads would not hit the glass; the building regulations required it until the early 19th century. Those that lean sideways, on the other hand, stand on wooden piles that have shifted.

As for narrowness, the house at Oude Hoogstraat 22, near the Nieuwmarkt, is 2.02 metres wide. The one at Singel 7, often billed as the narrowest, shows only its rear facade on the canal, barely a metre wide.

The last wooden facades

After the fires of 1421 and 1452, the city made brick compulsory, and wooden facades became extremely rare. Two remain: the one at Zeedijk 1 and Het Houten Huys, at number 34 in the Begijnhof. Long presented as the oldest house in the city, it was dated by dendrochronology in 2012 to 1528 or shortly after. To go further back in time, visit the Oude Kerk in the red-light district.

The Golden Age: Hendrick de Keyser and Jacob van Campen

A sculptor who became city architect, Hendrick de Keyser (1565-1621) gave Amsterdam its skyline of church towers. His style, known as Amsterdam Renaissance, uses classical elements as decoration: bands of pale stone against red brick, pinnacles, carved masks. He designed three Protestant churches:

• the Zuiderkerk (1603-1611, tower completed in 1614), the first church built in Amsterdam for Protestant worship, near the Nieuwmarkt;
• the Westerkerk (1620-1631), completed by his son Pieter after his death, whose tower of about 85 metres is the tallest in the city;
• the Noorderkerk (1620-1623), in the Jordaan, built on a Greek cross plan.

He also topped two former city wall towers with spires, the Montelbaanstoren (1606) and the Munttoren (1619). The Bartolotti House (Herengracht 170-172, around 1617) is attributed to him: its wide brick and stone facade follows the curve of the canal. It belongs to the Hendrick de Keyser Association, which opens it to visitors.

A generation later, Jacob van Campen introduced an Italian-inspired classicism. His masterpiece is the former town hall on Dam Square, now the Royal Palace: he took charge of the works in 1648, the building was inaugurated in 1655 and completed in 1665. The stone structure rests on 13,659 wooden piles. Louis Bonaparte made it his palace in 1808.

The taste for symmetry spread to merchants' houses: in 1663-1665 Philips Vingboons designed the mansion at Herengracht 386, home to the Canal Museum (Grachtenmuseum, formerly Het Grachtenhuis), where a multimedia tour tells how the canal ring was built. The Van Loon and Willet-Holthuysen museums show period interiors; our selection of canal houses to visit compares them.

The 19th century: Cuypers and Berlage

In the late 19th century, Pierre Cuypers blended Gothic and Dutch Renaissance in red brick and pale stone: the Rijksmuseum, opened in 1885, then Central Station, opened on 15 October 1889 on three artificial islands and 8,687 piles. The vaulted passage running through the Rijksmuseum is open to pedestrians and cyclists at all times.

Hendrik Petrus Berlage turned his back on historical ornament with the Exchange on the Damrak, the Beurs van Berlage (1898-1903): bare brick, exposed structure, a steel and glass roof. Now a venue for concerts, exhibitions and conferences, the building influenced 20th-century Dutch architects; its grand café is open to the public and guided tours can be booked. Berlage also drew up Plan Zuid, the southern extension of the city, which the architects of the Amsterdam School would build.

The Amsterdam School (1910s-1930s)

The Amsterdam School treated brick as a material to be modelled: undulating facades, towers, windows of varied shapes, integrated sculpture and ironwork. The movement was closely tied to social housing, funded by the Housing Act of 1901 and built by workers' housing associations.

• Scheepvaarthuis (1913-1916, extended in 1926-1928), Prins Hendrikkade, on the corner of the Binnenkant: offices for shipping companies designed by Johan van der Mey, with Michel de Klerk and Piet Kramer. Regarded as the first Amsterdam School building, it is now a hotel (Grand Hotel Amrâth).
• Het Schip (1917-1920), Oostzaanstraat 45, in the Spaarndammerbuurt: a complex by Michel de Klerk for the Eigen Haard housing association, originally with 102 homes, a school and a post office, crowned by a slender tower. The Het Schip museum has occupied the former post office and school since 2001 and shows visitors round a worker's flat. The Westerpark is close by.
• De Dageraad (from 1920), around the Henriette Ronnerplein, in Plan Zuid: housing by De Klerk and Kramer with rounded corners and wavy roofs. The De Dageraad museum runs guided tours of the area.
• Tuschinski cinema (1921), Reguliersbreestraat 26-34: Abraham Tuschinski's picture palace, designed by Hijman Louis de Jong, mixes Art Deco, Art Nouveau and Amsterdam School motifs. A national monument since 1967 and a royal theatre since 2021, it is best discovered by going to a screening.

Contemporary architecture: the IJ waterfront and the former docks

Since the 1990s, the city has converted its harbour quays into residential neighbourhoods and architectural showcases.

• NEMO (1997), Oosterdok: Renzo Piano set a green copper, prow-shaped hull above the entrance to the IJ tunnel. The sloping roof terrace of the NEMO Science Museum is free to access.
• ARCAM, the Amsterdam Centre for Architecture, occupies a trapezoidal building by René van Zuuk a short walk away, with exhibitions on urban planning. The OBA library is next door.
• Borneo-Sporenburg: on these two peninsulas in the Eastern Docklands, the firm West 8 drew up a plan for 2,500 homes from 1993 to 1996, mostly three-storey houses with patios, entrusted to around a hundred architects. Red footbridges, including the Python Bridge, link the quays. Our guide to the Eastern Islands describes the walk in detail.
• Silodam (1995-2003), Oude Houthaven: an MVRDV apartment block on stilts in the IJ, with facades in blocks of colour, next to converted former grain silos. The Western Islands are a few minutes away by bike.
• North bank: the EYE Filmmuseum (2012), a white, angular building by Delugan Meissl Associated Architects, stands next to Arthur Staal's former Shell tower (1971), reopened in 2016 with A'DAM Lookout at the top. The free ferry leaves from behind the station.
• Stedelijk Museum (2012 extension): on the Museumplein, Benthem Crouwel attached a white shell nicknamed "the bathtub" to the 1895 brick building.

Summary table of buildings

Prices checked in October 2026. Admission is free with the Museumkaart at the Grachtenmuseum, Het Schip, the Rijksmuseum, the Stedelijk and EYE; at Het Schip and De Dageraad, ages 5-12 pay €5 and ages 12-18 pay €10. A combined ticket for Het Schip and the Bartolotti House costs €25.

A walk through the eras

This route takes a day, combining walking, the ferry and the tram or a bike.

1. Morning, Middle Ages and Golden Age: start at the Begijnhof (Het Houten Huys), make your way to Dam Square and the Royal Palace, then follow the Herengracht to number 386 (Grachtenmuseum) and head back up towards the Bartolotti House and the Westerkerk. Our canal ring walk offers a detailed route.
2. Late morning, 19th century: come back down the Damrak to see the Beurs van Berlage and the facade of Central Station.
3. Midday, Amsterdam School and contemporary: walk along the Prins Hendrikkade to the Scheepvaarthuis, then carry on to the Oosterdok (ARCAM, NEMO and its roof terrace, OBA).
4. Afternoon, north bank: take the free ferry from behind the station to EYE and the A'DAM Toren, then go up to the Lookout at the end of the day.
5. Optional: set aside another half-day for Het Schip, about 2 kilometres north-west of the station, or for the Eastern Docklands by bike (Borneo-Sporenburg).

Tickets and lines are explained in our guide to public transport in Amsterdam.

Further reading

To dig deeper into the Golden Age, our guide to the historic centre and our guide to Amsterdam's churches cover De Keyser's buildings. For the Amsterdam School, read our guide to the Westerpark neighbourhood, around Het Schip. And to see the whole city from above, our selection of panoramic views of Amsterdam lists towers and terraces.