Amsterdam History

"Le territoire d’Amsterdam a plus que quintuplé entre 1585 et 1663. Cette croissance a, au travers des siècles, attiré l’attention des historiens comme des urbanistes. Ils ont passé au crible fin le développement de la ville au XVIIe siècle, et ce sous de nombreux angles. Deux aspects les ont
particulièrement intéressés : l’échelle de la croissance et la planification. Ce dernier aspect a, à partir du XIXe siècle, été étudié du point de vue du paysage urbain. La ville était considérée comme une composition scénographique géniale, comme le Versailles du Nord. Plus tard, le
regard s’est surtout porté sur le plan de ville au sol. Amsterdam était considérée comme l’incarnation de la ‘città ideale’, le summum de la planification.
Dans cette étude, nous nous baserons sur une idée plus pragmatique de l’urbanisme. La ville idéale, théorique, cède la place à la ville réelle et, par voie de conséquence, à la ville optimale : une réalité physique rétive dotée d’une dynamique spatiale et sociale imprévisible, laquelle est aménagée et gérée le mieux possible en vue de son utilisation par les autorités municipales en fonction de la situation du paysage et des eaux, des opinions prédominantes, des connaissances techniques, de la méthodologie urbanistique et de l’instrumentation disponible."

Jacob van Ruisdael's dramatic landsape paintings, in particular his wild waterfalls, were already cherished by his contemporaries. They seem like a faithful representation of reality, especially the depictions of Castle Bentheim which he painted thirty times, but a look at the still extant castle shows an entirely different image. Who were the customers for these and the countless images of Haarlem, the so-called "Haarlempjes", and do these customers reveal anything about the dramatic depictions shown by Ruisdael?

This article discusses the first series of performances of Joost van den Vondel’s Brothers in Amsterdam in 1641. The drama focuses on the heart-rending decision king David has to take to follow God’s will to ratify the executions of Saul’s sons and grandsons. With the staging of Brothers Vondel made an experiment in spreading the Word of God as profoundly, but also as respectfully as possible. He avoids showing the executions explicitly. Instead he uses diverse dramatic and visual means to urge the theatregoers to create strong mental images and thus to empathize maximally with David. Vondel’s experiment in theatre practice has striking parallels with theatre theory of the same period. In his poetics Vondel’s close friend Gerardus Vossius initiates modern discussion on the overwhelming effect of dramatic performances. With the help of Longinus’s On the Sublime Vossius makes a distinction between the ‘cheap’ momentary effect of staging explicit cruelties and the long-lasting effect of our imagination. By placing the performance of Brothers at the center of attention we get a privileged view on theatre practice and related theoretical discussion on the effect of the dramatic performance in the Dutch Golden Age.

Afro-Amsterdam was not like what you think it was! During the 17th century, the African community lived amicably with the white community in the neighborhood where Rembrandt's home was located. Amsterdam's Rembranthuis museum opens up an undisclosed collection. Review of the exhibiton.

In the early modern town, the public peace was not simply kept by one institution. Individual citizens, corporations and (semi-)governmental bodies all policed the early modern city. I will analyze the transition of the traditional system of urban policing to the modern institution called ‘police’, roughly between 1795 and 1820. I shall centre my attention on Amsterdam, because this city served as a ‘test plot’ for the provincial and central authorities in those years. New regulations concerning policing were often tried out in Amsterdam before being applied to the rest of the country. On the one hand, this was the result of the reform policy of the Department of Holland that was eager to reform the police in all its cities, including Amsterdam. And on the other hand, Napoleonic administrators feared that Amsterdam’s population might rebel against the French. To what extent and in which way was Amsterdam’s traditional policing system – an amalgam of strictly local institutions – transformed into a centralized police force at the turn of the nineteenth century?

Op 27 mei 1934 overleed in Amsterdam Meijer Linnewiel, beter bekend als ‘meester Kokadorus’ of ‘professor Kokadorus’ (Cocadorus). Hij was ‘de koning der standwerkers’, bekend om zijn politieke commentaren en gevatheden. Hij was wat men tegenwoordig een stand-up comedian zou noemen. Koningin Wilhelmina nodigde hem zelfs eens uit om in Paleis Het Loo te komen spreken. Dit was één van de weinige keren dat Kokadorus stilviel.

Between 1585 and 1663, during Amsterdam’s Golden Age, the city’s built-up area increased by more than fivefold. This growth over the centuries captured the attention of historians and city planners who analysed Amsterdam’s development from a variety of angles. However, there are two aspects that have attracted most of the attention: the large scale of the city’s expansions and their methodical planning. This second aspect has, since the nineteenth century, been seen mainly from the point of view of the townscape as a whole. Amsterdam was presented as a large-scale,
scenographic composition, a ‘Versailles of the North’, and as a consequence, a work of genius. Later on, researchers began to study the city’s ground plan. Amsterdam’s development was seen as an elaboration of the ‘città ideale’, the apex of urban planning.
In this study, urbanism and city development are looked at from a more pragmatic point of view. The ideal, theoretical city was replaced by the actual city, and, therefore, the optimal city. This study views Amsterdam as an unruly physical reality with an unpredictable spatial and social
dynamism, that had to be organised and managed by the city’s officials, while they coped with the existing landscape, hydrological circumstances, the state of technology and the rudimentary legal instruments that were available to them at the time.
The city’s ground plan was the result of a complex process in which different, sometimes incompatible, interests had to be balanced. A city design is not an isolated work of art, but a solution (or an attempted solution) for a broad range of problems within a specific situation. The city’s government was responsible for Amsterdam’s defence, functioning traffic and water
infrastructures, the provision of sufficient numbers of empty lots for new construction and for the management of various other urban services. This task must be considered in relation to the circumstances in which urban development took place during this period: soil conditions, water
management, traffic, a shortage of space for housing, harbour activities, trade and industry, spontaneous urbanisation, private landownership, and the entire network of infrastructures in which the city was entangled. But the city’s ground plan was not just the result of physical factors. Indeed, the social reality was also a prominent factor in the constitution of Amsterdam’s ground plan. The field of urbanism was a game of interests, interactions and sometimes confrontations between the forces of urbanisation and city design. Each of these factors had its influence on the planning processes and their outcomes. Furthermore, there were also the various instruments of urbanism: the methodology behind fortification plans, city design and the apportioning of parcels, as well as the legislative options.

"The increase in the population of Amsterdam and its economy led in the seventeenth century to expansion on an unprecedented scale. In the years 1585-1680 the population grew by a factor of eight and the builtup area by a factor of five. Following two major expansions in 1613 and 1663, Amsterdam became a new and modern town.
This article contains a short survey of the two large periods of expansion in the seventeenth century and the spatial design that accompanied them. Furthermore, it examines the relationship between the expansion, the land policy, the market for building land, legislation, and the building of houses in Amsterdam."

Seminar paper as part of the Masters program in Information amd Library Sciences at the The David Yellin College in Jerusalem, Israel.

The paper surveys a selection of the Hebrew books published in Amsterdam during the 17th and 18th centuries, which are now part of the rare and antique collection at the Yeshivat Har Etzion Library in Alon Shvut, Israel.

The paper relates to the historical background of the development of the Jewish community in Amsterdam in that period, and to the Hebrew printing industry which developed there and turned Amsterdam into a major center of printing and distribution of the Hebrew book in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The paper includes a full bibliographical catolog of 40 titles, with additional information found in these volumes, which is beyond the standard  bibliographic information  found in library catalogs

Year: 2014
Language: Hebrew
Mentor: Professor Ze'ev Gris

Merchant diasporas have long attracted the attention of scholars through the narrow prisms of 'nations' and states. The history of Amsterdam's Greek Orthodox merchants, together with the other cases—who left the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century and established a seemingly controversial range of networks involving the Dutch, Russian, Ottoman and Greek states there—is an oft-quoted example. This article draws attention to some of the problematic aspects of these perceptions of the relations between states and diaspora merchants. The main tenet of the article is that nation-and state-centred perspectives are limited in explaining the full scope of flexibility and pragmatism displayed by the diaspora merchants.

The Amsterdam Red Light District is locally and internationally significant as one of the oldest venues for visible and legal urban prostitution. Internationally it is perceived as a free-for-all zone of entertainment, a kind of ‘theme park’ for adult fun. Locally the Red Light District is a controversial place that stirs debates on Dutch ‘progressive’ policies, the impact of cultural globalization and importantly, whether or not prostitution should be allowed to exist in this kind of visible format in Amsterdam’s center. Recent urban planning changes in the area, instigated by City authorities, show the Red Light District is directly implicated in municipal gentrifying efforts, efforts that put at risk historic margins like the Red Light District. The paper introduces themes that will be discussed in depth by the special feature contributors: the red light district as a ‘moral region’, historical and legislative perspectives, political understanding and enactment of ‘liberal’ policies and municipal use of these concepts to self-brand, commercial and aesthetic character of the zone in view of the global sex industry, and the role of artists as cultural producers and marginal gentrifiers. This introductory paper to the special feature on the Red
Light District of Amsterdam offers an overview of key perspectives on red light zones and specifically addresses how the Amsterdam Red Light District both fits, and is an exception to visible urban zones of prostitution.
(with Magdalena Sabat)

An analysis on the idea of "happiness" during 18th in the European culture thorugh the image of the Dutch society as "happy society". With particular regard to the urban history of Amsterdam as example of city of happiness and to the perception of the Dutch landscape and the Dutch cities in the Italian liteture of late 18th century.

This year marks the quadricentenary of the first confirmed European arrival in Western Australia. On 25 October 1616, Dutch skipper Dirk Hartog and his crew landed at the northern tip of the island now named Dirk Hartog, in Shark Bay. Many have written about Hartog’s ‘accidental’ landfall and the inscribed pewter plate that he erected to mark his landing. This seemingly mundane event on the Western Australian coast earned Hartog a, then unforeseen, prominence in the legacy of seafaring history and in the early European history of Australia. It established him as a notable figure in the Age of Exploration. Today, the historical events and the physical remains of Hartog’s landing in Western Australia are firmly embedded within the context of European activity in the Indian Ocean region and, more specifically, Dutch exploration of the Australian coastline in the 17th century. This article sets out to provide a critical assessment of the life and seafaring activities of the first known European to set foot on Western Australian soil; and the history of Eendracht, the earliest known Dutch ship to explore the Western Australian coast.

This thesis is an inquiry into the supposed imperialistic and nationalist aspect of nineteenth century zoological societies. By comparing three of the oldest zoological societies, the aim is to get a full view on how these institutions were connected to the colonies and whether the embodiment of an imperialist ideology was an important aspect of the early zoological societies. Subject of research are the Zoological Society of London (1826), the Amsterdam society Natura Artis Magistra (1838) and The Antwerp Royal Society for Zoology (1843).
Chapter 1 serves as an introduction on the founding of each Society. From the mission statements of each Society, it is clear that they aimed to contribute to the building of collective pride, which was often related to national commercial and political successes, as well as royal patronage. The view on nature that was displayed was utilitarian, with the acclimatisation project of the Zoological Society of London as the clearest example.
Chapter 2 explores the ways in which these societies gained their collections and whether a colonial network existed. In general, the animals were donated by members or benefactors. These can be divided into three categories: members of the respective royal houses, foreign politicians or nobility and gifts by colonial officials who were members of the societies. The majority of animals in each garden came from the colonies of the respective country. The act of giving helped constructing a sense of collectivity. Together with the status of the animals as a colonial commodity, this helped strengthen the ideological element of these institutions.
Chapter 3 concerns the way the collections were presented and experienced in the gardens of the societies. Attention is paid to four different topics: architecture, the animals, cases in which exotic humans were showcased and the people who visited these early zoological gardens. Zoo buildings often had a strong exotic influences. The animals were seen and presented as representatives of their colonized homelands. The presence of indigenous handlers, albeit in a working and paid position, helped adding an exotic dimension to a zoo visit. Experiencing all this colonial splendour in the city, provided self-affirming pride to the spectators, most importantly the paying and contributing members and royals.
The conclusion is that there was definitely an imperialist element to these institutions, at least because of the way animals were brought to the zoo either as diplomatic gifts or gifts from colonial officials. However, it was one of many aspects. Zoos were not purely a ‘tool of the empire’, but this aspect of their history is not be ignored either. Moreover the expression of imperialism differed in each zoo researched here.

A master thesis researching life of the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews in Amsterdam. I discuss their differences and similarities by answering questions like: Did the different communities feel they were part of one big Jewish community, or that there were clear distinctions between them? Did the groups have truly different identities, or did they think of themselves as different by opposing their own group against the other, thus creating a 'significant other'?

"La diáspora sefardí a partir de 1492: exiliados, cristianos nuevos y judíos nuevos", en La influencia sefardí en los Estados Unidos, Madrid, Ministerio de Industria, Economía y Competitividad, 2017, pp. 11-34.
Panorámica sobre la formación de las comunidades sefardíes occidentales en los siglos XVI al XVIII. Se tratan los siguientes temas: la expulsión de los judíos en 1492, el efímero refugio en Portugal hasta la conversión forzada de 1496, la formación de comunidades de la "nación portuguesa" (compuestas por conversos judaizantes) en Italia, Amberes, Hamburgo, Dinamarca, Amsterdam, sur de Francia, Londres y la emigración hacia América.

In de archeologie zijn lakenloden één van de minst begrepen en meest ondergewaardeerde voorwerpen. Hoewel er vele lakenloden worden aangetroffen op allerhande opgravingen, wordt aan deze kleinoden maar weinig aandacht besteed. Lakenloden kunnen echter van grote archeologische betekenis zijn, mits een goede datering mogelijk is. Dit onderzoek is erop gericht om met behulp van vastgelegde stadswapens en -zegels uit de steden Amsterdam, Leiden en Delft lakenloden uit deze drie steden te dateren. Ook is onderzocht hoe de bestudeerde lakenloden nieuwe inzichten kunnen bieden in de dynamiek van de lakenindustrie.

After 89 years of prohibiting brothels, the Netherlands legalized prostitution in 2000. The legislations of both 1911 and 2000 did not only mark the beginning of a new phase of in/formalizing prostitution and the spatial-institutional setting in which it takes place, but were also the result of the changing image of prostitution related to the wider sexual order. Despite the apparent contradiction between prohibition and legalization, both are central moments in the spatialization of prostitution. Prostitution, in parallel to the civilizing of other manners, is relegated to increasingly confined spaces and as such banned from “normal” social life. While reducing the visibility of prostitution in “normal” life, it increases the visibility in these spatially confined zones that we know as red-light districts, Amsterdam’s Wallen district being the paradigmatic example.

During the 19th century prostitution was increasingly seen as a prison, both morally and physically. This new imaginary of prostitution was institutionalized in the 1911 morality laws. Prostitution did not die out, but got relegated to more informal circuits. The 2000 legalization had few direct spatial effects because most of what was written in the law was already the practice in regulated prostitution. The recent plans of the city government for Amsterdam’s major red-light district, however, have dramatic consequences for prostitution. The growing regulation not only of prostitution as such but also of the places of prostitution results in the increasing concentration of brothels in an ever-smaller red-light district. Paradoxically, formal regulation also pushes part of the commodified sexual activities out of the red-light district and into informal circuits that are far less spatially bound. The new in/formalized spatial-sexual order recursively affects the imaginary of prostitution.

Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-1878) was een telg uit een familie van doopsgezinde assuradeurs, die een eeuw lang een toonaangevende rol speelde in het Amsterdamse culturele leven. Evenals zijn oudoom Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1735-1833) en vader Jacob de Vos Wzn (1774-1844) kunstverzamelaar. Bracht een belangrijke collectie tekeningen en prenten van zeventiende-eeuwse Hollandse meesters bijeen, waaronder vele Rembrandts. Stichter van de historische galerij De Vos, een particulier museum bestaande uit 253 in zijn opdracht vervaardigde olieverfschetsen van taferelen uit de vaderlandse geschiedenis. Groot muziekliefhebber. Trad in een aantal Felix Meritis-concerten op als fluitsolist. Ook bekend als filantroop. Stichtte samen met zijn echtgenote Henriëtte Wurfbain, dochter van een steenrijke effectenmakelaar, het Henriëttehofje aan de Stadhouderskade. De veiling van zijn kunstcollectie in 1883 vormde de aanleiding tot de oprichting van de Vereniging Rembrandt.

Proses integrasi Eropa menjadi Uni Eropa telah melalui berbagai perjanjian yang saling melengkapi satu sama lain. Perjanjian yang ikut berperan penting dalam perkembangan Uni Eropa adalah Perjanjian Schengen, Maastricht dan Amsterdam. Ketiga perjanjian itu memiliki pengaruh yang signifikan terhadap Uni Eropa. Esai ini membahas Perjanjian Amsterdam yang menjadi salah satu bentuk perjanjian yang paling mengakomodasi semangat kebersamaan Uni Eropa.

From pigsties to palazzi: The demolition of the medieval town wall of Amsterdam and its effects on the use of urban space

City plans from around 1600 represent Amsterdam with a double ring of fortifications. Inside the sixteenth-century bastioned system, the late medieval town wall is still in place. The new fortification was constructed in 1585-1586 because the high stone walls along the Singel, Kloveniersburgwal and Geldersekade canals would not withstand a siege with modern artillery. The old walls remained upright for years after the new fortification was completed. This article (in Dutch) deals with the demolition of the old walls in the years 1601-1603 and its consequences for urban development.

In today’s world, where technology is growing at a rapid speed, making way for futuristic products, services and new findings. These are in most cases sparked by an idea which is clearly thought out and put through a decision making process. Decision making can be defined as “a selection of a course of action from amongst alternatives” (Koontz and Weihrich, 2015). The decision making process takes place on a day to day basis in the lives of all and at many levels. This could be within a group of people, an organisation and not to mention on a global level where decisions are made between countries on certain important matters. In addition decisions are a driving force that shapes the destiny of any business, thus better decisions leads to better business.  Making decisions together during a meeting is an important part of more or less any group. Regardless of the reason for the meeting, the decisions made determine how the group proceed to achieve its goals. Therefore the effectiveness of any group depends upon the group’s ability to make good decisions.
Many times, poor decision making process impairs a group’s effectiveness. This could be the result of rejection, manipulation, intimidation or problematic behaviours that often arise during the process (Hartnett, 2015).Choosing the right decision making process to tackle an issue is very important to many organisations in existence. There are many decision making processes used by organisations some of which are majority, unanimous, hierarchical and consensus decision making (Common types of decision-making processes, 2012).

Collectors of curiosities gained deep knowledge of their naturalia while cleaning, embellishing, positioning, arranging and maintaining the objects they had so onerous obtained. The essay ‘Art opens the Book of Nature’ in the catalogue Medusa’s Menagerie. Otto Marseus via Schrieck and the Scholars illustrates how this worked in the case of three collectors of curiosities of the late seventeenth  and early eighteenth century. The anatomist Frederik Ruysch tried through his ‘art’ of anatomical preservation to dispel the decaying effects of death. Simon Schijnvoet used his knowledge of the ’art’ of classicist architecture to order his collection in an elegant as well as instructive way. Levinus Vincent and Joanna van Breda, producers and merchants of luxury textiles, applied their knowledge of artful textile techniques to make splendorous assemblages of butterflies, beetles, flies and other insects. Through their art the collectors opened the Book of Nature.

This fifth and last installment of D. C. Meijer Jr.’s article on Amsterdam civic guard portraits focuses on works by Govert Flinck (Oud Holland 7 1889]: 45–60). Meijer’s article was originally published in five installments in the first few issues of the journal Oud Holland.

Two years ago I discovered the Portrait of an Unknown Man by Constantin Netscher, in the collections of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. In this article I show that this could well be an unknown portrait of Peter the Great from the time when he visited Amsterdam in 1696-'97. To my mind he is portrayed as a wealthy Amsterdammer.
The article was published in Russian in: 250 Stories about the Hermitage, "Collection of Motley Chapters...", Book two, St. Petersburg, 2014, pp. 87-92 ("Еще один портрет Петра Великого?").

Countless are the chapels, churches, synagogues, mosques and palaces modelled on an idea of what the Temple of Solomon looked like, measured or meant. The Reformed Christians of the Dutch Republic were just as susceptible to the sacred mystery of the Temple as Catholics, Muslims and Jews in their own worlds. This study shows how reconstructions of the Temple on paper (by Spanish Jesuits in 1595) and in a famous model (by a Dutch Jew in the 1640s) affected the form of church, synagogue and palace architecture and decoration in the mid-seventeenth-century Netherlands.

Indice del volume
I. InEuropa p.3
II. Continuità e discontinuità nelle strategie urbane p. 11
III. Lacartografia:
utilità, tecnica, bellezza e propaganda p.18
IV. Città barocca, città moderna p.22
Scheda: Roma, p. 29
V. Le città capitali p.35
VI. L’impero spagnolo p.42
Scheda: Napoli, p. 48
VII. La frammentarietà del Sacro Romano Impero p.52
Schede: Vienna, p. 58 - Varsavia, p. 61
VIII.Le capitali del Nord Europa p.63
Scheda: Amsterdam, p. 69
IX. L’Inghilterra: tra monarchia assoluta
e governo costituzionale p.73 Scheda: Londra, p. 78
X. La Francia: una moderna monarchia assoluta, p. 83
Scheda: Versailles, p. 96
XI. Lo Stato sabaudo p.100
Scheda: Venaria Reale, p. 107
XII. Le mura, le acque, i porti p.111
Schede: Messina, p. 129 - Rochefort, p. 133
XIII.Le nuove fondazioni p.136
Schede: Zamosc, p. 147 - Richelieu, p. 150
XIV.Le calamità: tipologie e strategie di ricostruzione, p. 154
Scheda: Avola, p. 164
Bibliografia 167 Gli autori (D.del Pesco, cap. 1-11; (A.H., cap. 12-14, Londra, Venaria Reale), p.177 Indice dei luoghi p.181