City Icons: Amsterdam - Almost sold out!

May, Friday 24 - Saturday 25 - Sunday 26, 2024

Calling all architecture aficionados: There are still a few places on our first City Icons weekend tour! Follow this link to register.
Join us as we explore Amsterdam’s avant-garde homes from the 20th and 21st centuries, and enjoy a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at exciting privately owned homes not usually open to the public. Inspiration is guaranteed. But hurry: first come, first served!

Join us in May for our exciting new event: IH City Icons!
This small but significant tour conference is open to anyone with a passion for architecture and will take place during the years between the biannial IH Conferences. Cultural enthusiasts can enjoy a fascinating behind-the-scenes experience. Museum professionals can benefit from an intensive weekend of knowledge-sharing about museum management and insightful discussions with colleagues. Visits to modern house museums and tours guided by experts open up a new world. As well as visiting Amsterdam’s modern house museums, this programme offers a unique opportunity to visit the most exciting housing projects of recent years, which are not normally open to the public.

IH City Icons makes its debut with Amsterdam: Housing Highlights.
On May Friday 24, Saturday 25 and Sunday 26, 2024, we will be exploring Amsterdam’s unique residential architecture – from its Golden Age roots in the 17th century, to the modernist social housing heritage, and its present-day fruits in the form of contemporary residential projects with the wow factor. Experts put everything in context and tell you what to look out for on the tours.

Friday, May 24: Registration at the House with the Dolphins

In the House with the Dolphins we found the perfect ambiance for the registration of the attendees: in the golden bend of Herengracht, where you’ll experience the classic charm of Amsterdam’s historic canalside mansions. The house was built in 1686 by a tax collector from Haarlem. While the interior would have been much more austere back then, one prominent flourish it has always proudly displayed are the dolphins adorning the gable. Tracy Metz and Baptist Brayé now host events at their StadsSalon, which is so much more than just a venue. It’s their home. And they take great pleasure in welcoming us for a unique experience of Amsterdam, past and present. The Grand Salon and Golden Room were fully renovated in 2014, restoring the original 19th-century colors and replacing the heavily damaged ceiling painting with an interpretation of a 1708 painting by Abraham Bisschop based on the ancient Greek fable The Bird in Borrowed Feathers.

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From Merchants to Modernists
After registration, we glide on Friday evening on a Canal Cruise through a wonderful example of 17th century urban planning: the beautiful canals lined by stately houses. These were built by rich merchants, but the streets in between were home to more humble workers, living in a style of comfort unusual for ordinary people at the time.

Museum of the Canals, Philip Vingboons, Amsterdam, 1663-1665.
Photo courtesy Museum of the Canals.

Welcome Reception Museum of the Canals

Our welcome reception is at the Museum of the Canals with a private view of the presentation and kick-off introductory lecture by architectural historian and urban planning expert Linda Vlassenrood. In her talk "Coming Home to Amsterdam: A Century of City Planning", Linda Vlassenrood introduces Amsterdam's extraordinary 20th-century history of city planning. She will cover the period from Berlage's Plan Zuid (1915) to Van Eesteren's General Expansion Plan (1935) and beyond. She will also focus on Jakoba Mulder who was instrumental in these developments as the first woman to head the city planning office. (Read our interview with jer in this link)

Saturday, May 25: Eight House Tours and Exhibition

Saturday is devoted to the 20th century. While elsewhere the wealthy were building their extraordinary villas, in Amsterdam a series of visionary architects, employed by forward-thinking housing associations, were creating 'palaces for the people': avant-garde modernist apartments designed for ordinary working folk. We explore 20th-century developments from the early modernist icons of the Amsterdamse School, with their extraordinary expressionist brickwork, to the live/work complex Tetterode, a survivor of the 1980s squatters movement and an experiment in alternative forms of co-living and co-working.

Amsterdam School Museum Het Schip:

Model Home, Slum Dwelling Replica and Post Office

Museum Het Schip Model Home, Michel de Klerk, Amsterdam, 1921.
Photos: Els Zweerink/www.elszweerink.nl.

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Museum De Dageraad

Museum De Dageraad, Michel de Klerk, Piet Kramer, Amsterdam, 1923.
Exterior photo: Marcel Westhoff. Interior photos: Natascha Drabbe.

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Van Eesteren House Museum

Van Eesteren House Museum, Nielsen, Spruit & Van de Kuile, A'dam, 1952.
Exterior photo: Monique van Dongen. Interior photos: courtesy Van Eesteren Museum.

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The Skyscraper

The Skyscraper, J.F. Staal, Amsterdam, 1932. Photo: Arcam.nl.

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Live/Work Building Tetterode

Live/work building Tetterode, Merkelbach & Karsten, Amsterdam, 1950.
Photo top: Arcam. Photos bottom: Volkskrant.

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Zomerdijkstraat Artists' Studio Houses

Artists' Studio Houses Zomerdijkstraat, Zanstra, Giesen and Sijmons, Amsterdam, 1932-1934.
Photo top: Wikipedia. Photos bottom: www.zomerdijkstraat.nl

Sunday, May 26: Housing Leads the Way

After visiting the Drive-in houses that where hyper modern in the 1930s, we return to the present with a tour of some of the city’s most vibrant contemporary residential icons: BIG’s Sluishui and MVRDV’s Valley. These are situated in new areas of Amsterdam – the amazing new city that is rising around the World Heritage site of 17th-century Amsterdam, with residential architecture once again playing a leading role.

With the global move to the city, and the increasing interest in social housing and new forms of co-living and co-working, these homes have much to offer us. We hope you will join us for a weekend full of tours that will not only tell us about the past, but also inspire some ideas for the future. Plus, Europe is lovely in the spring and there are many other events to enjoy – why not combine Amsterdam with a visit to the Venice Biennale, for example?

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Drive-in Houses - South Amsterdam

Drive-in houses, Willem van Tijen, Mart Stam, Lotte Stam Beese, Hugh Maaskant, 1935-1936. Photos: Stadsarchief Amsterdam.

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Sluishuis - IJburg - East Amsterdam

Sluishuis, BIG and Barcode Architects, Amsterdam, 2022.
Photos: Ossip van Duivenbode.

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Valley - Zuidas - South Amsterdam

Valley, MVRDV, Amsterdam, 2022.
Rendering top: MVRDV. Photos bottom: Ossip van Duivenbode.

Publication date 5 January 2024, updated 21 Match 2024