This chapter charts the evolution of the extensive distribution system connecting producers and consumers. From the middle of the sixteenth until the second half of the seventeenth century, the size of the Amsterdam market increased sharply, and so did the wealth of the urban elites. These changes gave rise to an expanding trade sector and to differentiation and job specialization within the distribution system. The modernity of the distribution system that emerged in Amsterdam was expressed in the presence of specialized wholesalers and retailers, who together guaranteed a wide and varied range of goods in the city. At the same time, the division between wholesale and retail was not as stark as it would become much later.
This essay provides an overview of the evolution of the location and appearance of Amsterdam shops in the period from around 1550 to 1850. With the aid of a new technique (Space Syntax Analysis) it has been established that shops selling luxury goods were located in highly accessible areas within the Amsterdam street network. In practice this meant in the vicinity of Dam Square, the old riverbanks either side of the River Amstel, and along the radial streets running from the city gates and outlying districts into the city centre. Because the street pattern of the early modern part of Amsterdam changed very little, existing accessibility patterns and thus also the retail function of the old shopping streets endured. Even today those old retail development patterns are still apparent. Shops selling food and other daily necessities were - in line with existing location theories - dispersed across the city. For centuries Amsterdam shops had an open character reminiscent of market stalls. Shopkeepers placed their wares on the stoop, on window ledges and on folded-down lower shutters, or they hung the goods from the well-nigh ubiquitous awnings. This practice was hardly surprising since the front part of the house was usually poorly lit, and steps, cellar doors, cellar shops and other obstacles prevented pedestrians from walking close to the facades. As such, the facade and the stoop served as the shopkeeper's display case. It was not until the late seventeenth century and more especially during the eighteenth century that the shops on the main shopping streets started to place their wares inside the building, thereby following the example of shops in London and Paris and responding to the well-to-do clientele's desire for privacy. This transition was aided by the introduction of timber mullion and transom windows with large panes of clear glass, the removal of awnings and the clearing of obstacles on the stoop. In addition, from the late eighteenth century there were technological innovations in interior lighting (Argand oil lamp and gas lamp), while the second half of the eighteenth century saw the emergence of the first 'real' shopfronts with accentuated entrances. With the relocation of the merchandise from the facade and the stoop to the shop space behind the facade, the furnishing of this space gained in importance. The sometimes exceedingly austere sixteenth- and seventeenth-century interiors, especially in the shops selling luxury goods on the main shopping streets, started to give way to interiors with beautifully decorated counters, cabinets and display cases. From the beginning of the nineteenth century, and once again influenced by London and Paris, the vital link with the public in the street was maintained via projecting shop windows and later by flat display windows and lavish lighting of the shop interior. At the same time, the first examples of the chain store made their appearance in Amsterdam.
This essay provides an overview of the evolution of the location and appearance of Amsterdam shops in the period from around 1550 to 1850. With the aid of a new technique (Space Syntax Analysis) it has been established that shops selling luxury goods were located in highly accessible areas within the Amsterdam street network. In practice this meant in the vicinity of Dam Square, the old riverbanks either side of the River Amstel, and along the radial streets running from the city gates and outlying districts into the city centre. Because the street pattern of the early modern part of Amsterdam changed very little, existing accessibility patterns and thus also the retail function of the old shopping streets endured. Even today those old retail development patterns are still apparent. Shops selling food and other daily necessities were – in line with existing location theories – dispersed across the city. For centuries Amsterdam shops had an open character reminiscent of market stalls. Shopkeepers placed their wares on the stoop, on window ledges and on folded-down lower shutters, or they hung the goods from the well-nigh ubiquitous awnings. This practice was hardly surprising since the front part of the house was usually poorly lit, and steps, cellar doors, cellar shops and other obstacles prevented pedestrians from walking close to the facades. As such, the facade and the stoop served as the shopkeeper’s display case. It was not until the late seventeenth century and more especially during the eighteenth century that the shops on the main shopping streets started to place their wares inside the building, thereby following the example of shops in London and Paris and responding to the welltodo clientele’s desire for privacy. This transition was aided by the introduction of timber mullion and transom windows with large panes of clear glass, the removal of awnings and the clearing of obstacles on the stoop. In addition, from the late eighteenth century there were technological innovations in interior lighting (Argand oil lamp and gas lamp), while the second half of the eighteenth century saw the emergence of the first ‘real’ shopfronts with accentuated entrances. With the relocation of the merchandise from the facade and the stoop to the shop space behind the facade, the furnishing of this space gained in importance. The sometimes exceedingly austere sixteenth- and seventeenth-century interiors, especially in the shops selling luxury goods on the main shopping streets, started to give way to interiors with beautifully decorated counters, cabinets and display cases. From the beginning of the nineteenth century, and once again influenced by London and Paris, the vital link with the public in the street was maintained via projecting shop windows and later by flat display windows and lavish lighting of the shop interior. At the same time, the first examples of the chain store made their appearance in Amsterdam.
From the end of the sixteenth century the economy of the Dutch Republic, a new player in the European state system, expanded vigorously, and within the new nation it was Amsterdam in particular that rose to prominence. Boosted by its maritime sector, the Amsterdam economy expanded and diversified, creating almost insatiable demand for space to accommodate its booming industries and the rapidly rising number of ships that entered its port as well as to house the many thousands of migrants who settled in the city and supplied it with the skills and labour needed to sustain economic growth.1 It should therefore not come as a surprise that from the end of the sixteenth century to the third quarter of the seventeenth, after which period the growth of the Amsterdam economy and population slowed down, the municipal government was faced with the need to expand the city. Based on the principles of functionality, beauty and profitability they created a city that by the end of the seventeenth century was the most planned and organised large urban space in Europe.2 Its canal district, in particular, contributed to Amsterdam’s fame as a model of urban planning and development, a role it would play for centuries. As late as the 1960s Lewis Mumford called Amsterdam ‘one of the greatest examples of the town planner’s art’, stating that ‘Nothing so thoroughly and uniformly good as Amsterdam had previously made its way into urban design, on the same scale, anywhere.’3
TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis
A case study of three early modern Dutch cities (Alkmaar, Delft, and Amsterdam) using geographical information systems and confronting earlier historical, sociological, and geographical models finds clear patterns of segregation below the level of the city block, thus necessitating block-face mapping. The remarkable continuity in patterns of residential segregation is best explained by the workings of the real-estate market, allowing the well-to-do and middle classes to realize their preferences. In Amsterdam, the merchant elites were able to use their political dominance to plan a scenic and expansive residential environment free from noisy and odorous activities.
ABSTRACT:In this article location theory is used to map and analyse the patterns of retail location in Amsterdam in the eighteenth century. In the city centre as well as along the main axes to markets and the city gates the retailing of shopping goods (textiles, consumer durables) was much more prominent than elsewhere in the city. In contrast, shops selling convenience goods (foodstuffs etc.) were scattered all over the city. The correspondence of empirical data and location theory suggests that the urban government and institutions did not interfere with the location preferences of shopkeepers. An analysis of local acts and guild regulations corroborated this assumption. What did affect the location patterns of shops was history. The morphological and socio-economic legacy of the past acted as an intermediary between general location principles and the implantation of shops in the urban landscape.
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TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis
TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis
TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis
TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis
TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis
Using detailed information on rents of houses in Alkmaar we were able to demonstrate that in the preindustrial epoch, neighbourhoods and even blocks of houses were socially mixed. This was, however, not the case for blocksides: in Alkmaar a string of costly residences ran along the east-west axis of the city. Contrary to what is often supposed this residential pattern did not result from the social structure of early modern society or the lack of intra-urban transport, but from a 'modern' force: accessibility and the value of urban land. We therefore question the widely held view that modernization and industrialization caused a fundamental change in the social structure of cities (and societies). Finally we expanded the scope of our research by including empirical evidence on Amsterdam and drawing the broad contours of a descriptive model for the study of urban growth and residential segregation.
