Royal Palace Amsterdam
Jacob van Campen's 17th-century town hall on Dam Square, now the King's reception palace.
The Royal Palace was built between 1648 and 1665 as Amsterdam's town hall, at the height of the city's commercial power. Jacob van Campen designed it in a Dutch classicist manner, on some 13,500 timber piles driven into the marshy ground. Contemporaries called it the eighth wonder of the world. Louis Napoleon turned the building into a palace in 1808, and it passed to the Dutch state in 1936; it remains the reigning monarch's official reception palace.
Visitors walk through the state rooms and can see the Citizens' Hall, a marble chamber whose floor carries inlaid maps of the hemispheres and the night sky. The sculptor Artus Quellinus and his workshop supplied the allegorical marble reliefs and figures, while painters including Ferdinand Bol, Govert Flinck and Jacob Jordaens contributed large canvases for the council chambers. An audio tour is included with admission, and guided tours and family trails run alongside it.
Highlights
- Citizens' Hall with inlaid marble maps of the world and sky
- Marble sculpture and reliefs by Artus Quellinus and his workshop
- Paintings by Ferdinand Bol, Govert Flinck and Jacob Jordaens
- Still used by the King for state visits and receptions
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