Hendrick de Keyser, the man who gave Amsterdam its skyline
Hendrick de Keyser (1565–1621) was Amsterdam’s city sculptor and architect during its fastest growth. He designed the city’s first Protestant churches and the spires that still mark the old centre: the Zuiderkerk, the Westerkerk, the Munttoren and the Montelbaanstoren.
A sculptor who became the city’s architect
De Keyser was born in Utrecht and trained as a sculptor. He moved to Amsterdam in 1591, and in 1595 the city appointed him its master stonemason and sculptor. It was the right moment. Amsterdam was doubling in size, it had money, and it had just changed religion, so it needed new churches, gates, towers and an exchange, and it wanted them to look like nothing built before.
He was not an architect in the modern sense. He worked alongside the city’s master mason and master carpenter, and designed what the city council asked for. But for twenty-five years almost every public building in Amsterdam passed through his hands.
What he built
His first church, the Zuiderkerk, was the first in the city designed for Protestant worship. The Westerkerk, begun in 1620, was the largest. In between he took two leftover medieval towers, the Montelbaanstoren and the stump of the Regulierspoort, and gave each a decorative top with a clock and a spire. The building for the East India Company on the Oude Hoogstraat is attributed to him as well.
His style is easy to spot: red brick striped with bands of pale sandstone, and gables and spires piled up in stages, each one lighter and more open than the one below.
After him
De Keyser died in 1621, the year after work started on the Westerkerk, and was buried in the Zuiderkerk. His son Pieter finished the church. Outside Amsterdam his best-known work is the tomb of William of Orange in Delft.
A generation later taste changed. The architects of the town hall on the Dam wanted the sober classical look of ancient Rome, and De Keyser’s playful brick and stone fell out of fashion. His towers stayed, and they are still the first things you see above the rooftops.
Where to see it
- Zuiderkerk The Zuiderkerk is the first church built in Amsterdam for Protestant worship, designed by Hendrick de Keyser and completed in 1611, with its tower finished in 1614.
- Westerkerk The Westerkerk is a Protestant church on the Prinsengracht, built from 1620 to 1631 to a design by Hendrick de Keyser.
- Montelbaanstoren The Montelbaanstoren is a tower on the Oudeschans canal, built in 1516 to defend Amsterdam’s shipyards.
- Munttoren The Munttoren is a tower on the Muntplein that began as part of the Regulierspoort, a medieval gate in Amsterdam’s city wall.
- Oost-Indisch Huis The Oost-Indisch Huis is the former Amsterdam headquarters of the Dutch East India Company, the VOC, built in 1606.
- Huis met de Hoofden The Huis met de Hoofden, the House with the Heads, is a large canal house of 1622 on the Keizersgracht, named after the six carved heads of Roman gods on its front.
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