Het Schip
Why is it significant?
Walk towards the narrow point of the building and look at it from a little distance, the way you would look at a ship's bow coming into harbour. That is exactly what the neighbours saw, and that is why everybody has called it Het Schip, the Ship, from the start.
Key Facts
| Place | Het Schip |
|---|---|
| Address | Oostzaanstraat 45, 1013 WG Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.39050, 4.87370 |
| Part of Walk | Red Brick Dreams: Amsterdam School, Het Schip & the Western Islands |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk towards the narrow point of the building and look at it from a little distance, the way you would look at a ship's bow coming into harbour. That is exactly what the neighbours saw, and that is why everybody has called it Het Schip, the Ship, from the start.
It was built between 1917 and 1920 for the workers' housing association Eigen Haard, which means Own Hearth. The block is a long triangle of 102 homes, with a post office at the sharp end and a small meeting hall for the tenants. De Klerk even wrapped his walls around an older school that already stood on the site, folding it into the composition rather than knocking it down.
Now look at the tower. It holds no bells, no water tank, no stairs worth climbing. It is there purely to give the neighbourhood a landmark, a spire for people who had never had one of their own. Below it, look for the details: the bulging window frames, the lettering, the brick laid in waves, the little front doors each slightly different. Many of the new homes had their own toilet, a luxury most of the tenants' parents had never known.
Not everyone was charmed. Some councillors grumbled that such ornament was a waste of public money, and some architects of the rising modern movement thought it sentimental. But the socialist alderman Floor Wibaut and his allies backed this kind of building, and the tenants were proud of it. People called these blocks workers' palaces, and they meant it without irony.
The former post office is now Museum Het Schip, devoted to the Amsterdam School, and if you step inside you can see the post office interior restored to de Klerk's design. Every lamp and letter seems to have been drawn by hand. When you are ready, continue a short way north to a quiet gateway that leads into a completely different idea of how workers should live.