After visiting the Amsterdam Museum, we headed to the Canal House Museum, known as the “Museum of the Canals” or “Het Grachtenhuis“. The museum is located in an old house along an older portion of canals and it was delightful. While visiting Amsterdam we visited many museums, and we found nearly all of them to be incredibly well-curated.
The Canal House Museum was one of our favourites. They made particularly good use of audio visual effects to tell the story of Amsterdam’s architecture as it relates to the canals and the houses built alongside them.
Here’s bit of information from Wikipedia about the Amsterdam Canals:
Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands, has more than one hundred kilometers of grachten (canals), about 90 islands and 1,500 bridges. The three main canals (Herengracht, Prinsengracht and Keizersgracht), dug in the 17th century during the Dutch Golden Age, form concentric belts around the city, known as the Grachtengordel. Much of the Amsterdam canal system is the successful outcome of city planning. In the early part of the 17th century, with immigration rising, a comprehensive plan was put together, calling for four main, concentric half-circles of canals with their ends resting on the IJ Bay. Known as the “grachtengordel”,[5] three of the canals are mostly for residential development (Herengracht or ‘’Patricians’ Canal’’; Keizersgracht or ‘’Emperor’s Canal’’; and Prinsengracht or ‘’Prince’s Canal’’), and a fourth, outer canal, the Singelgracht, for purposes of defense and water management. The plan also envisaged interconnecting canals along radii.
As you can tell, the Canal House Museum is the perfect follow up to the Amsterdam Museum. To get a sense of how the museum looks, check out this video:
Th Canal House Museum is a must-see for anyone interested in urban planning or anthropology, or even just those of you who love quality museums. Check it out if you can! See below for a few photos from our visit.
the stories that I'm telling. 