Inside the hotel café, I’m drinking strong Dutch coffee and preparing to immerse myself in Amsterdam’s rich history of architecture, particularly its evolution in the last century. Here in this well-preserved city of 750,000 people, iconic 17th-century canal houses reflecting Baroque and Classical design elements commingle with sleek modern buildings—chic boutiques, trendy restaurants and a new crop of design hotels—and the result, for all that variety, feels surprisingly organic. That’s because, according to Virginia Beach-based architect Al Opstal, who grew up in the Netherlands, “Switching from the old to the new is second nature to the Dutch in Amsterdam.” While the city’s architecture is not exactly cohesive, Opstal believes, it gives Amsterdam “a unique historic perspective and a charm all its own.”
The Dutch are a practical people, and they’re also problem-solvers, as evidenced by their reputation as skilled engineers. They famously rescued their own country from rising seas, and right now Dutch engineers are assisting with a 10-year overhaul of New Orleans’ dikes and levy systems. (In Virginia, Dutch firms have been involved in major engineering projects including the Monitor-Merrimac Tunnel and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel.) But the Dutch do more than just build things. They manage to imbue engineering projects, even mundane structures, with an aesthetic—as anyone who has visited Amsterdam and strolled across one of the city’s 1,600 bridges will attest.
To introduce me to Amsterdam design, Alice Roegholdt, a local architecture expert, is preparing to lead a tour of the Grand Hotel Amrath, a five-star property a few blocks from Central Station. It’s a monument to the unique expressionistic period of architecture and design known as the Amsterdam School, which flourished in the Netherlands between 1910 and 1930. Incorporating elements of Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts, Cubism and Art Deco, this style features fanciful brickwork, ornamental spires and decorative windows and doors. One can see examples of the Amsterdam School in apartment buildings, department stores and even “street furniture”—think mailboxes and streetlights.
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