EUHeritageTOUR-TourGuide-Basic-EN

The Netherlands
Amsterdam
Source: UNESCO/CLT/WHC
Seventeenth-
Century Canal
Ring Area of
Amsterdam inside
the Singelgracht
Description
The historic urban ensemble of the canal district of
Amsterdam was a project for a new ‘port city’ built at the
end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. It
comprises a network of canals to the west and south of the
historic old town and the medieval port that encircled the
old town and was accompanied by the repositioning inland
of the city’s fortified boundaries, the Singelgracht. This was
a long-term programme that involved extending the city by
draining the swampland, using a system of canals in
concentric arcs and filling in the intermediate spaces.
These spaces allowed the development of a homogeneous
urban ensemble including gabled houses and numerous
monuments. This urban extension was the largest and
most homogeneous of its time. It was a model of largescale
town planning, and served as a reference throughout
the world until the 19th century. The Amsterdam Canal
District illustrates exemplary hydraulic and urban planning
on a large scale through the entirely artificial creation of a
large-scale port city. The gabled facades are characteristic
of this middle-class environment, and the dwellings bear
witness both to the city’s enrichment through maritime
trade and the development of a humanist and tolerant
culture linked to the Calvinist Reformation. In the 17th and
18th centuries, Amsterdam was seen as the realization of
the ideal city that was used as a reference urban model for
numerous projects for new cities around the world.
The Begijnhof (Begijnhof 30, Amsterdam). The Begijnhof
was built in the 14th century as a residence for the
Begijntes (Beguines), a Catholic order of unmarried or
widowed women who wished to live a pious life of service
without becoming nuns. The Beguines received free
lodging in return for caring for the sick and the educating
the poor of Amsterdam. One resident, Cornelia Arens, so
loved the Begijnhof that she humbly asked to be buried in
the gutter in 1654. She lies under the slab of red granite on
the walkway on the left side of De Engelse Kerk. The last
Beguine here died in the 1970s. As part of the "Alteration"