Beurs van Berlage: Where VOC Shares Were Born
Why is it significant?
Stand on the Damrak and take in the long brick building with the square clock tower. No marble columns, no gilded dome: just honest brick, iron and stone, as if a warehouse had decided to become a cathedral of trade.
Key Facts
| Place | Beurs van Berlage: Where VOC Shares Were Born |
|---|---|
| Address | Damrak 243, 1012 ZJ Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.37500, 4.89630 |
| Part of Walk | Spice, Ships and Shadows: Amsterdam's Golden Age Harbour and the Dutch East India Company |
| Generated | Generated |
Stand on the Damrak and take in the long brick building with the square clock tower. No marble columns, no gilded dome: just honest brick, iron and stone, as if a warehouse had decided to become a cathedral of trade.
This is the Beurs van Berlage, built between 1898 and 1903 by Hendrik Petrus Berlage as the city's exchange. Many people found it far too plain, but it set Dutch architecture on a new path. And it stands on water, in a sense. The Damrak was once the harbour's inner arm, open water reaching almost to the Dam, where ships unloaded right in the heart of the city. Part of it was filled in during the nineteenth century, and this building rose on the new ground.
Our story begins on 20 March 1602, when the Dutch merged their rival trading ventures into one company, the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC. It was given a monopoly on Dutch trade east of the Cape of Good Hope, and anyone could invest. Merchants put in fortunes, but craftsmen and even servants put in small sums. Of the roughly six and a half million guilders raised across the country, more than half came from Amsterdam.
The money could not simply be taken out again, so investors began selling their shares to each other. They traded first in the open air near the bridges of the Damrak, and from 1611 in a new exchange building over the Rokin. In 1609 a disgruntled former director, Isaac Le Maire, even tried to drive the price down by selling shares he did not own... the first known bear raid. The authorities banned the practice the following year. Short selling, futures, speculation: much of modern finance was rehearsed within a few hundred metres of where you stand.
But a share is only a promise, and this walk is about what stood behind that promise: spices, ships, sailors, and the people on the other side of the world who paid the real price. Walk north along the Damrak towards the station, then turn right along the Prins Hendrikkade, until you reach a small round brick tower at the water's edge.