Het Grachtenhuis (The Canal House)

Cold and rainy day in Amsterdam - what to do but to visit a museum,preferably a place I never saw before.

Now,this is a bit of problem because I did visit everything that interested me so I'm running out of places. My all-time favorite museum is Amsterdam's History Museum but I've been there so often that they probably say "oh no,not him again" when I visit. As it happens there is a museum almost around the corner from me,it must be something new since I don't remember it from before,it is a museum about how famous Amsterdam's canals are built - "Grachtenhuis" or "The Canal House" is a story about how city grew bigger and bigger until it came to the present shape.

The building itself is very beautiful and impressive. Upon entrance visitor gets audio-guide  - as you enter the room,there is a whole multi-media program going on and it was so entertaining that we all enjoyed it very much. It was designed by team Kossman- de Jong (now very successful design agency) and what they did is very,very good - as visitor follows the story from room to room, we hear the noise of the city, voices and music - explanations on audio-guide of course - and see movies that cleverly play all over the place (digital projection over the city's rooftops, over the map and so on). The story explains that at certain point in history, Amsterdam became simply too crowded - locals have accepted and welcomed refugees from the rest of Europe where religious wars were constantly destroying everything - so major of the city and his main counselors were looking for the way to expand the over-populated city somehow outside its limits: after several interesting proposals (to built it as a circle, as a square and so on) they decided to expand it by building three major canals around the centre area - it would have space for large palaces, nice location for warehouses and magazines, there would be trees and gardens everywhere making it the prettiest city plan and of course canals would serve as transportation. The idea was very successful and slowly the city we know came to be - no more over-crowded slums and mud everywhere, this city and its beautiful canals suddenly had presentable buildings where wealthy people lived and showed off nice,comfortable lives. I remember my own initial confusion with city's canals but its only important to remember - there are three canals that go like a horse shoe around the centre (centre being central train station) - once you realize this is what it is, you can't get lost anymore because these three canals are parallel and you just need to check on the map your location. 

I thought this museum was the cutest thing - only small groups are allowed (12 people at the time) so we all have time to listen our audio-guide (multi-lingual option) and the tour goes for about 45 minutes. Since I am already very familiar with Amsterdam's History Museum this was a nice sequel to what I have already know from before.