Het Schip: the ship-shaped block in Amsterdam's working-class district

Northwest of Amsterdam's centre, in the Spaarndammerbuurt district, there is a building that tourists heading for the canals and the Rijksmuseum rarely reach: Het Schip, "the ship". It is an entire block of social housing designed by the architect Michel de Klerk and completed around 1919-1920. The nickname comes from the shape: the façade stretches out and rounds off like a hull, closed at one end by a tapering little tower that houses nothing functional and is purely decorative. It is considered the manifesto of the Amsterdam School, the movement that between the two wars turned brick into a sculptural language.

Houses for workers

The most surprising thing is that all this began as houses for workers. The block was commissioned by the socialist housing cooperative Eigen Haard ("one's own hearth") and originally contained 102 dwellings, today reduced to 82, plus a small meeting hall, a post office and a primary school. The political idea was explicit: to give workers not only a dignified home but also a beautiful one, in years when social housing almost everywhere meant anonymous barracks. De Klerk worked on the details with a rare obsession: bricks of different shades, from orange to brown, laid in wavy patterns, windows of unusual shapes, wrought iron, a monumental letterbox. It is worth making the full circuit of the block on foot, because each side is different and many details can only be seen from certain angles.

The museum

Since 2001 the former post office and former school have housed a museum dedicated precisely to the Amsterdam School. You visit the restored post office and, above all, one of the workers' apartments reconstructed with furnishings of the period: it is the part that makes the meaning of the project concrete, because you understand how the families really lived inside these curved walls. The museum also organises guided tours of the exterior and of the block, useful because many of the design choices only make sense once you know their history. The indicative hours are Tuesday to Sunday, 11:00-17:00; it is worth checking the official website before going, as they can change for holidays or temporary exhibitions.

The reason Het Schip remains little visited is mainly geographical: the Spaarndammerbuurt is a residential district, cut off from the museum and canal zone, with no other "postcard" attractions in the immediate surroundings. This, however, makes it a quiet place, where you move among locals and not among organised groups. In the nearby streets, moreover, there are other Amsterdam School social housing complexes signed by other architects too: once there, it is worth extending the walk and looking around, because the whole neighbourhood is a small open-air museum of Dutch social architecture.

Getting there

To get there: the address is Oostzaanstraat 45. From Amsterdam Centraal station it is a walk of about twenty to twenty-five minutes westward, a good opportunity to cross the Westerpark and the Houthavens area. Alternatively there are city buses serving the Spaarndammerbuurt; the lines and stops are best checked on the local transport app (GVB), as they vary. As almost everywhere in Amsterdam, the bicycle remains the most convenient means. The coordinates for the map are 52.3902, 4.8767. Any time of year is fine for the visit, since it is an indoor museum, but spring and early autumn are the best months to also enjoy the walk around the block and the park along the way.

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