Famous Landmarks in Amsterdam
Golden Age wealth built canal-ring houses on timber piles driven into reclaimed peat.
Amsterdam's landmarks sit along two overlapping rings: a medieval core near Dam Square and the seventeenth-century canal belt built during the Golden Age. The oldest survivors are a Gothic brick parish church and a defensive tower from the old city walls, put up when Amsterdam was still a fortified trading town on the Amstel. Golden Age wealth then paid for a new city hall grand enough to later serve as a royal palace, and for parish churches built inside the freshly dug canals. Nineteenth-century prosperity added larger public institutions further out, including a national museum that finally opened a purpose-built home after decades of its collection moving between temporary quarters. Brick and reclaimed land tie the periods together; each ring shows a different budget and a different ambition.
Rijksmuseum
1885 · Pierre Cuypers
It sits on a shared museum square alongside the country's other major galleries and is, by its own collection size, the largest art museum in the country, with a million objects behind its walls.
The Rijksmuseum is the national museum for Dutch art and history, founded in The Hague in 1798 and moved to Amsterdam a decade later, first housed in the former city hall and then in the Trippenhuis. Its purpose-built home, designed by Pierre Cuypers, opened in 1885. A ten-year renovation costing 375 million euros closed the main building until 2013. It now displays 8,000 objects from a collection of one million, including Golden Age paintings by Rembrandt, Hals and Vermeer, plus a small Asian collection.
- It began in The Hague in 1798 and only reached Amsterdam a decade later.
- A ten-year, 375-million-euro renovation closed the main building until Queen Beatrix reopened it in 2013.
- It was the country's most-visited museum in both 2013 and 2014, with 2.47 million visitors the second year.
Photo: Rodrigo Silva (CC BY 2.0)
Royal Palace of Amsterdam
1665 · Jacob van Campen
A symmetrical Dutch Baroque facade closes off one side of the main square, standing beside a large church and facing a war memorial across the open plaza.
Commissioned by burgemeester Nicolaes Tulp as a new city hall even before the old one burned down in 1652, the building was completed in 1656 and became an internationally admired showpiece, its rooms recorded and copied by visiting artists. Design is credited to Jacob van Campen, with Daniël Stalpaert also named among its architects. Under the Batavian Republic its public floors became Amsterdam's first museum, run by Louis Bonaparte; once Napoleon made him king, the building became a royal palace, and it has remained at the monarch's disposal since.
- It was commissioned as a city hall before the building it was meant to replace had even burned down.
- Its public floors briefly served as Amsterdam's first museum before the building became a royal palace.
Photo: C messier (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Westerkerk
1631 · Hendrick de Keyser
Its Baroque profile marks the western edge of the canal ring, wedged between the Prinsengracht and Keizersgracht and set right against the Jordaan district.
The Westerkerk is a Reformed church serving Dutch Protestant Calvinism, built in 1631 to a design by Hendrick de Keyser, who died a decade before its completion. It stands at the western edge of the Grachtengordel canal district, next to the Jordaan neighbourhood and between the Prinsengracht and Keizersgracht. Raised during Amsterdam's Golden Age expansion, it belongs to the Baroque architectural period and is protected as a Rijksmonument. It continues to hold Reformed services today, one of the working parish churches built inside the seventeenth-century canal ring.
- Its architect died in 1621, a decade before the church he designed was finished.
Photo: Dietmar Rabich (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Oude Kerk
1306
Its Holland Gothic exterior encloses a square in the De Wallen district; since 2012 the church has hosted contemporary art exhibitions alongside its ongoing Reformed services.
The Oude Kerk is Amsterdam's oldest surviving building and its oldest parish church. Founded around 1213 as a modest chapel, it was consecrated in 1306 as a Roman Catholic church dedicated to Saint Nicolas by the bishop of Utrecht. After the Reformation of 1578 it became, and remains, a Reformed Calvinist church. Built in the Holland Gothic style, it stands in the De Wallen district, where the surrounding square takes its name. Since 2012 it has also hosted contemporary art exhibitions alongside worship, and it is protected as a Rijksmonument.
- It began as a wooden chapel around 1213, nearly a century before the stone church was consecrated.
- It has hosted contemporary art exhibitions alongside Reformed worship since 2012.
Photo: Gerd Eichmann (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Montelbaanstoren
1516
A tower on the bank of the Oudeschans canal, its plain lower section from the early 1500s topped by an ornate section added a century later that brings it to 48 metres tall.
The Montelbaanstoren is a tower on the bank of the Oudeschans canal, built in 1516 as part of Amsterdam's fortified walls to help defend the city and its harbour. Its plain lower section survives from that original construction; the decorative upper half, designed by Hendrick de Keyser, was added in 1606, bringing the tower to its current height of 48 metres. A sixteenth-century plan to fold the tower into a castle called Monte Albano was never carried out, though the scheme left its garbled trace in the tower's Dutch name.
- Its name is a garbled memory of Monte Albano, a castle planned around the tower but never built.
- The tower has stood at exactly 48 metres since its decorative top was added in 1606.
Photo: S Sepp (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Canal Ring
1613–1664
Three parallel, concentric canals lined with narrow, gabled brick townhouses; the grandest stretch, known for double-width mansions and coach houses, runs along the innermost of the three main canals.
The Canal Ring, known locally as the Grachtengordel, comprises three concentric waterways, Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht, dug from 1613 under a seventeenth-century city plan that also added a defensive outer canal and radial cross-canals. Construction proceeded sector by sector, reaching the southern stretch only after 1664; the planned eastern arc was largely abandoned for parks and public institutions instead. Some 1,550 monumental brick townhouses line the three main canals, long polluted until the sewer system finally reached them in 1987. The ring joined the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2010.
- Between 12,000 and 15,000 bicycles are pulled out of the canals every year, a practice known locally as 'bike fishing'.
- Peter the Great stayed in houses on both the Herengracht and the Keizersgracht during his two visits; John Adams and the physicist Daniel Fahrenheit also lived on the Keizersgracht.
- Houseboats were still allowed to release sewage straight into the canals as late as 2018, when new rules finally required them to connect to the sewer system.
Photo: Dietmar Rabich (CC BY-SA 4.0)
History
Amsterdam began as a small fishing settlement where the Amstel river was dammed to control flooding, and its oldest surviving building, a stone church consecrated in 1306, replaced an even earlier wooden chapel on the same spot. Defensive walls followed, including a tower raised in 1516 to guard the harbour and later given a decorative upper section. Wealth from seventeenth-century trade financed the canal ring and the buildings inside it: a Reformed church finished in 1631, and a new city hall commissioned even before its predecessor had burned down. Napoleonic rule later turned that city hall into a royal palace. Amsterdam's nineteenth-century prosperity built grand civic institutions further from the old centre, among them a national museum that opened a purpose-built home in 1885 after decades of its collection moving between temporary buildings.