Dutch Canal Houses Trivia Quiz

Answer: Taxation: tax was paid according to the width of the canal house

Canal houses in Amsterdam were taxed according to their width.

Along the wealthiest parts of the canals in Amsterdam (for example the Gouden Bocht or Golden Bend), rich people would build wide palaces-like houses - they could afford the higher taxes.

Defensive aspects were not important in building canal houses, the most important aspects were living and storing goods. There are examples of "city castles" in the Netherlands (some of them along canals, i.e. Utrecht), but these defensive structures are not found in Amsterdam.

When a flood would cause the dikes to collapse, the city would be submerged in one or two meters of sea water. For this purpose, the doors to many canal houses are raised and are only accessible by climbing a flight of stairs in front of the house. This however didn't have to do do anything with building high, narrow houses. The upper stories of many (if not all) canal houses were only for stocking goods, not for people to live during floods.

Answer: Moving furniture

Because of the narrow and steep stairs in canal houses, moving furniture is done by using the pulleys that were once used for hoisting grain, spices, linen and other goods.

Cleaning windows is done by putting up a ladder, tram cables are attached either to the gable or poles, electrical cables are in the ground.

Although there might be some pulley systems that are never used for moving furniture, they were never meant as a decorative aspect, nor are they viewed in that manner nowadays.

Answer: Nose facade

There is no such thing as a nose facade along Dutch canals.

A spout facade is a simple kind of gable: a triangle, topped with a small crow step.

A shoulder gable is almost the same as a spout facade, but halfway up the gable there are other crow steps. (One could say it is a crow stepped gable, but most steps are missing.)

A neck gable is one of the more elaborate gables, containing a lot of sculpture.

Answer: 17th century

Crow-stepped gables were already being built in the Middle Ages, and during the Renaissance period they were very popular. The Baroque period called for more rounded, elegant gables. During this period a lot of the variants of gables emerged.

The first gable to evolve from the crow-stepped gable was the increased neck gable, which allowed for more sculpture and classical forms.

Answer: Herengracht ("Lord's Canal")

The Singel was the location of the first city wall.

Parst of the Herengracht became the place where the richest inhabitants built their double-wide palaces.

The Keizersgracht (named after Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emperor) was first planned as a waterless boulevard, but these plans were quickly turned down. The soil from the canal was needed for the new defensive ramparts, and the planners figured that not many merchants would want to live along a waterless boulevard. Being a merchant, a waterway to ones warehouse was very important.

The Prinsengracht was the most outer canal, and the least fanciful. A lot of warehouses were built here among the canal houses, and it was the border between the fancy Canal Belt, and the less fancy Jordaan area. (The area where the workers and the poor people lived.)

Answer: Some 2300

Between 2000 and 2500 gable stones survive in the Netherlands. This number however is on the rise: old stones are found and replaced, reconstructions of gable stones are made accoriding to old drawings, or entirely new stones are designed and placed.

Gable stones can show for example: family names, rebuses, jokes, panoramas of old cityscapes, biblical stories, reproductions of paintings and drawings, animals, professions, heraldry, ancient greek myths, etc.

In Amsterdam alone, around 900 gable stones can be found.

Answer: Crow stepped gable

The "House on Three Canals" is the only house in Amsterdam facing three canals (the Grimburgwal, Oudezijds Voorburgwal and Oudezijds Achterburgwal).

The house was used as a clandestine printing office during the Nazi occupation, and during a renovation in 2005, a secret hiding place was found above a fireplace. In this secret closet the renovators discovered letters and manuscripts, dating to World War 2.

Answer: In the back house

The title of Anne Frank's diary is "Het Achterhuis", or the Back House. These buildings were built behind the canal houses, in order to create more space for living and storing goods.

Answer: To make the house collapse forward in the canal, in case of fire

Many people think that canal houses on flight are a result of unstable soil, but the incline is actually on purpose.

Unstable soil does in many cases cause canal houses to tilt, but not especially forward. (Most of the time, when the foundation is not sufficient, the building will become crooked, or lean toward its adjacent neighbour.)

This tilting forward can also be seen in many medieval houses on streets not lining a canal or not built as a warehouse. A lot of timber framed houses have stories which jut forward, leaning on corbels. Gaining space and preventing rain from damaging lower floors are the reasons for these houses jutting out.

Answer: Huis Ten Bosch

Pronounced Housu Ten Bosu in Japanese.

Theme park Huis Ten Bosch is a reminder of Japanese-Dutch trading relations during the 17th-19th century. Other remants of Dutchness in Japan are various (reconstructed) windmills, Dutch words which have been included into Japanese, and of course the former island of Dejima.
This former trading post has been reconstructed to what it looked like in the 18th century: Japanese-style houses which once functioned as Dutch canal houses.

And there are canal houses: the Japanese-style Dutch warehouses in Dejima are situated along a canal. (Although this is very recent: the island has stopped being one due to land reclamation, another Dutch specialty.)