The Royal Palace in Amsterdam is one of three palaces in the Netherlands, which are at the disposal of the monarch
The Royal Palace in Amsterdam is one of three palaces in the Netherlands, which are at the disposal of the monarch by Act of Parliament. The palace was built as a city hall during the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century. The building became the royal palace of King Louis Napoleon and later of the Dutch Royal House. It is situated on the west side of Dam Square in the centre of Amsterdam, opposite the War Memorial and next to the Nieuwe Kerk. The palace was built as the Town Hall of the City of Amsterdam and was opened as such on 29 July 1655 by Cornelis de Graeff, the mayor of Amsterdam. It was built by Jacob van Campen, who took control of the construction project in 1648. It was built on 13,659 wooden piles and cost million gulden. Yellowish sandstone from Bentheim in Germany was used for the entire building. The stone has darkened considerably in the course of time. Marble was the chosen material for the interior. Roman administrative palaces and public buildings inspired Jacob van Campen. He wanted to build a new capitol for the Amsterdam burgomasters who thought of themselves as the consuls of the new Rome of the North. The town construction master Daniël Stalpaert looked after the technical implementation. Artus Quellijn executed the sculptures. The central hall is 120 feet long, 60 feet wide and 90 feet high. On the marble floor there are two maps of the world with a celestial hemisphere. The Western and Eastern hemispheres are shown on the maps. The hemispheres detail the area of Amsterdam's colonial influence. The terrestrial hemispheres were made in the mid-18th century. They replaced an earlier pair made in the late 1650s. The originals showed the regions explored by the Dutch East India Company's ships in the first half of the 17th century. This feature may have been inspired by the map of the Roman Empire that had been engraved on marble and placed in the Porticus Vipsania, a public building in ancient Rome.
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Location: The Royal Palace in Amsterdam is one of three palaces in the Netherlands
Photo credit: © Rik Hamilton / Alamy / Afripics
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