Why Amsterdam’s canal houses are narrow and lean forward

Look up at an old canal house in Amsterdam and you will see a beam with a hook under the gable. It is called a hijsbalk, and it hoisted goods and furniture up the facade, because the stairs inside are too narrow to carry anything large. Once you know that, the whole street starts to make sense: the narrow fronts, the steep stairs, even the way the facades seem to lean toward you.

This guide covers what the beam does, why the houses are the shape they are, and what to look at when you walk along the three main canals.

Narrow plot, narrow stairs

The canal houses of the 17th century were built on plots that were deep and short on the street side. According to Wikipedia, the lots started at 18 Amsterdam feet and then grew to 20, 22, 24 and 26. An Amsterdam foot was 28.13 cm, so the narrowest plot had a frontage of just over five metres and the widest about seven and a half.

Why so narrow? The usual explanation is a tax based on the width of the frontage on the canal, and some visitor guides state it as fact. Other explanations point to the price of land along the water. Sources disagree, and I would treat any single-cause story with caution. What nobody disputes is the result: houses that are slim, high and deep, usually with a basement and a loft or attic where trade goods could be stored.

With so little frontage, there was little room left for a staircase. It ended up steep and tight, which is why moving a sofa or a wardrobe up the inside was never practical.

How the hoist beam worked

Wikipedia describes a beam or pulley installation in the attic used to hoist valuable goods such as spices and cotton, or heavy ones such as cocoa. The same beam that lifted merchants’ stock in the 17th century lifts furniture now. A rope runs through a pulley at the end of the beam, and the load swings up along the outside of the building to the large window of the right floor.

That brings us to the lean. Many facades tilt forward, a few degrees, and builders did this on purpose. Amsterdam Days, a local walking-tour company, explains that the forward lean lets the load rise without scraping the brickwork.

Not every tilt is deliberate. Houses on soft ground can also settle over the centuries, so a crooked house is not always a designed one. The hijsbalk gives you a clue: a facade leaning forward in a smooth line, with the beam at the top, was probably built that way.

More than one kind of house

Not all canal houses are the same. The same builder often put up several houses to the same or a mirrored design, and Wikipedia calls them twins or triplets. There are even sets of four or five identical houses, and in those cases the houses are smaller than normal, since three of them might be built on two lots.

Along the Herengracht you will also see double-wide houses, built on two plots. These mansions usually did not need a rear building. One of them, at Herengracht 386, now holds the museum Het Grachtenhuis, which tells the story of the canal belt.

Behind the front house there was often a garden, running halfway to the next street or all the way to the house behind. In the second half of the 17th century a rear extension was sometimes built and joined to the front by a passage. The courtyard between them brought in light. During World War II, Anne Frank and her family used a rear building of this type as a hiding place.

Warehouses were deeper still, sometimes 40 metres. When trade and transport changed, they lost their function, and after the war many became homes.

The stairs at the front door

Look at the entrances too. Because of the danger of flooding in the early 18th century, the front door is sometimes raised and reached by steps, putting the main floor about seven to nine steps above the street. Many of those stoops disappeared in the 19th century, when entrances moved down to the basement level.

What to look for on your walk

• The beam and hook. Scan the very top of the facade, usually under the gable. Look for a pulley wheel at the end.
• The lean. Stand across the canal and compare the top of the facade with the base.
• Gable shapes. Plain step gables and more elaborate neck gables sit side by side along the Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht, according to Amsterdam Days.
• Twin houses. Look for two or three neighbours with the same design, sometimes mirrored.
• Stoops and basement doors. They tell you which era a house was altered.
• Evening light. Amsterdam Days suggests an evening walk, when lower windows light up and the upper floors catch the last light.

If you are renting an apartment in one of these houses, ask how large furniture gets in. It is a question worth asking before you buy a sofa.

What this tells you about the city

Amsterdam’s canal belt was a place of trade, and its houses were built to store goods as well as to live in. The narrow plots, the pulley and the steep stairs are three answers to the same constraint. The canals asked for a narrow house, and the narrow house asked for a crane on the front.

If this kind of detail interests you, read about why people say Holland when they mean the Netherlands, or about Venice’s access fee for another old canal city that now manages visitors differently.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Canal house
• Amsterdam Days: Why Amsterdam’s canal houses lean
• DutchReview: Amsterdam’s canal houses