Dam (Amsterdam)
The Dam is the central square of the city of Amsterdam and the most famous city square in the Netherlands . It is located in the center of the medieval city center and is the location of numerous buildings of national importance. The dam in the Amstel River, built here in the 13th century, gave its name to the square and the entire city.
location
The Dam is in the center of Amsterdam. The two main roads that flow into it are the Damrak boulevards , built on the filled-in river bed of the Amstel , which leads north to the central station , and Rokin , which leads south to Muntplein (Münzplatz).
The much narrower shopping streets Nieuwendijk (to the north) and Kalverstraat (to the south), which are designated as a pedestrian zone , run parallel to the west . The Kalverstraat is considered to be the city's main shopping street.
The Warmoesstraat and the Nes run east parallel to Damrak and Rokin and flow into the east end of the square.
The most important streets in an east-west direction are the Damstraat leading east to the Oudezijds Voorburgwal (Altseitner Vorburgwall, one of the " Wallen ") and the Paleisstraat leading west to the Singel .
Smaller alleys leading into the square are the Mozes en Aaronstraat and the Eggertstraat in the northwest, the Pijlsteeg (Pfeilgasse) in the east and the Beurspoortje (stock exchange gate) in the southeast.
Buildings
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The dominant building on Dam Square is the Royal Palace , which was built as the town hall by the wealthy citizens during the city's heyday between 1648 and 1665. During the French occupation , Louis Bonaparte, appointed " King of Holland " by Napoleon, requisitioned the town hall as his royal palace. After the expulsion of the French in 1813, the town hall was returned to the city, but after it was bought by the Dutch royal family in 1939 it became a royal palace. However, the royal family uses the huge building only for representation purposes, as a residence, they preferred that also the architect Jacob van Campen built palaces Huis ten Bosch at the edge and Noordeinde in the center of The Hague .
Before that, the old, Gothic- style city hall of Amsterdam was located in almost the same place , which burned down in 1652, which gave rise to the new building.
The second major monument on Dam Square is the Gothic Church of Our Lady , known today as the Nieuwe Kerk ("New Church"). The church was consecrated in 1409, the youngest components in the north transept were built between 1530 and 1540 in the Renaissance style . The largest church in the old town has no towers, construction work for these was stopped in 1563. The church burned down three times, the last time in 1645, but was restored in the original style. It was handed over to a foundation in 1979 by the Dutch Reformed Church and is now used as a cultural center, exhibition and concert hall. The weddings of the royal family and the blessings of the new kings and queens also take place here.
The third known building on the Dam is the national monument , which since 1956 has commemorated the victims of the occupation of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany 1940–1945. The central commemoration ceremony takes place here on May 4th, the Dutch national day of mourning , when the king lays a wreath at the monument in honor of the dead. On the remaining days, the monument is a popular meeting place for young people, tourists and pigeons.
In its place stood from 1856 to 1914 the monument De Eendracht ("the concord") by Louis Royer , popularly also known as Naatje van de Dam , which commemorated the unity of the Netherlands, which was lost through the separation of Belgium in 1830/31 was embodied by a four meter high female figure.
Other large buildings on Dam are the Hotel Krasnapolsky (1883) on the east side of the square and on the northeast side the De Bijenkorf department store (beehive, 1912–1915) between Damrak and Warmoesstraat, the largest of the 13 branches of this department store chain. On the south side of the square, between Rokin and Kalverstraat, is the Madame Tussauds wax museum in the Peek & Cloppenburg department store . On the corner of the Rokin is the Industria House of the Industrieele Groote Club , built in 1912 by Foeke Kuipers .
history
The construction of a dam and a lock goes back to the founding history of the city and probably happened between 1265 and 1275. The damming of river mouths was necessary in order to shorten the coastline endangered by storm surges . Such dykes included locks to let the river water through and not to hinder shipping. In addition, there was the important function for the water balance: while the Amstel was open below the dam to the confluence with the bay IJ to the Zuiderzee and thus to the North Sea and was subject to the tides of the North Sea, humans could raise the water level above the dam by opening and closing the Regulate the lock yourself and thus keep it largely constant. By deliberately opening the lock gates during an ebb tide, river water could be flushed into the sea with great force, so that the urban sewage from the city could be disposed of and even the channel of the port located in the estuary of the Amstel (the Damrak) deepened.
Other old Dutch cities were also created in this way, the damming of an estuary to shorten the sea dike, such as Rotterdam (an der Rotte ), Schiedam ( Schie ) or Zaandam ( Zaan ), which therefore also have the suffix -dam in their name.
The dam closed the gap in the sea dyke on the southern bank of the IJ and at the same time created a fixed road connection over the Amstel for the first time, which connects the two existing settlement centers on both sides of the river (in the area of today's Nieuwendijk on the west and today's Warmoesstraat on the east Banks) connected.
At the end of the Middle Ages, the top of the dike was widened to the point where space was created for a town square called Middeldam . Another square was built on the west bank, which, according to its function as the central main square, was simply called Plaetse ("square"). The northern part of the Middeldam was called Vissersdam (Fischerdamm) because the town's fish market was located here, while the southern part was called Vijgendam (Feigendamm). The Plaetse was during the French occupation from 1795 Place de la Révolution and then Place Napoléon .
The Dam served as the city's central marketplace, where ships could also dock. This possibility no longer existed in the 19th century when the Damrak, the lower reaches of the Amstel River leading to the IJ, was filled in and turned into a splendid boulevard. The square was expanded to the north in the 1910s and merged into the urban unit known today. The Amstel above the Dam, the Rokin, was given riverside roads in 1913, but was also filled in in 1933-36, so that the Dam can no longer be reached by ships from the south.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Dam developed from Amsterdam's central marketplace into a national “forum”, the center of the nation, which every Dutch person is familiar with and which provides the backdrop for important national events, demonstrations and commemorations.
traffic
The Damrak – Dam – Rokin road running along the former Amstel river bed is one of the few axes that can be used for modern car traffic and is therefore an important main road.
At the time of the horse-drawn tram, the Dam was the most important node of the tram network in all of Amsterdam, later this function was shifted north to the Central Station. The Dam is still an important tram junction today and is served by six lines. Tracks run over Damrak and Rokin, through Paleissstraat, Mozes-en-Aaronstraat and in front of the town hall on the west side of the square.
Since 2003, the second inner-city route of the Amsterdam subway has been built along Damrak and Rokin . Due to major technical problems during construction, the opening is currently not expected until 2018. The Rokin underground station is to be built under the street of the same name, a few meters south of the dam, and to integrate it into the rail network in addition to the tram.
Web links
- BMZ ( Memento of August 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (Municipal Monuments Office): Stadhuis op de Dam / Koninklijk Paleis (Dutch)
- Website of the nl. Royal House : The Royal Palace in Amsterdam
Coordinates: 52 ° 22 ′ 23 " N , 4 ° 53 ′ 33" E