The Canal District as a Site of Cognitive-Cultural Activities: “A Miracle of Spaciousness, Compactness, Intelligible Order”

The characteristic seventeenth-century facade of the Amsterdam Canal District seems to have changed little in four centuries. The fine-grained urban morphology with its intimate intertwining of land and water is still very much intact. The preindustrial maritime technology implied that mercantile shipping was not just highly labour intensive but also that functions – loading and unloading, warehousing, coordination and control, as well as living and leisure – were bound to be in close proximity to each other as well as near the water. According to Mark D’Eramo (2015: 85), “the mansions of the great merchants were never far from the port; the