By Isla Quinn
Two streets, one above the other. That is the Oudegracht in Utrecht, and it is the first thing that makes this city different from the rest of the Netherlands’ canal towns.
The canal
Wikipedia’s article on the Oudegracht says the canal is about 2 km long and runs northwest through the centre. It says the northern part is probably an early canal from around AD 1000, linked to the Vecht, and that the southern part was dug from 1122, after the water level of the Rhine dropped. The soil that came out was used to raise the banks. The lock system was finished in 1275, which, the article says, kept the water level steady and made permanently dry cellars and quays at water level possible. The wharves, called werven, sit below street level, so the canal works on two tiers. The Utrecht article calls it a curved canal lined with wharf-cellar structures that form a two-level street. The national tourism board’s Utrecht page names the Oudegracht as a highlight and says you can pass canal houses and vaulted cellars by canoe. Wikipedia adds that warehouses once lined the canal and that many are now restaurants and cafés.
The tower, and the nave that is not there
The Dom Tower is the tallest belfry in the Netherlands, according to Wikipedia’s Utrecht article. Its own article gives 465 steps. The sources split on the height: the Utrecht article says 112 m, the tower article’s opening gives 112.32 m, and the body of the same article gives 112.5 m after a restoration in 1910. We show all three.
They also frame the building dates differently. The tower article says work began in 1321 and finished in 1382, with John of Hainaut as designer. The Utrecht article says the Gothic cathedral began in 1254, with choir and transept finished from 1320 and the tower following. The nave was begun in 1420 and never completed. The tower article says the unfinished nave was destroyed on the night of 1 August 1674, in what it calls a tornado, and that the tower was undamaged. The square now between tower and church, the Domplein, is paved to show the floor plan of the missing nave. The tourist board’s own site says the visitor centre sits beneath the tower.
A house built as a manifesto
The Rietveld Schröder House is at Prins Hendriklaan 50. Wikipedia says it was built in 1924 and that its client, Truus Schröder-Schräder, lived there with her three children until her death in 1985. The house’s own museum site says it was designed in 1924 for her, a widowed mother of three, and that she lived there from 1925. UNESCO describes it as a manifesto of the ideals of the De Stijl group and says it was inscribed in 2000. Wikipedia gives the date as 2 December 2000. The museum site says sliding walls divide the upper floor into rooms, that a corner window opens on two sides, and that the stairs are hidden behind a sliding door. It says the house once overlooked a polder, and that a motorway and viaduct were built across the front lawn in the 1960s.
Gerrit Rietveld was born in Utrecht and died there in 1964, according to Wikipedia. The article gives his birth as 24 June 1888 in its infobox and as August 1888 in its text. We leave that open.
Miffy’s town
Dick Bruna, who created Miffy in 1955, was born in Utrecht on 23 August 1927 and died there on 16 February 2017, according to the official nijntje site. The Centraal Museum’s own site describes a museum of art, design, fashion and city history and links itself to the Rietveld Schröder House.
Dates in order
- Probably around 50 CE: Roman fort Traiectum, according to Wikipedia.
- Around AD 1000: northern Oudegracht, probably, according to Wikipedia.
- 1122: city rights granted and southern canal dug, according to Wikipedia.
- 1254: cathedral begun, according to Wikipedia.
- 1275: lock system finished, according to Wikipedia.
- 1321 to 1382: Dom Tower, according to Wikipedia.
- 1674: the nave falls, according to Wikipedia.
- 1924: the Schröder House, according to Wikipedia and the museum.
- 2000: UNESCO listing, according to UNESCO.
What kind of sources these are
Wikipedia (open encyclopaedia, several articles), UNESCO (heritage body), the Netherlands tourism board and the Utrecht visitor site (tourism boards), and the Rietveld Schröder House and Centraal Museum sites (museums describing themselves). We have left out hours, tickets and transport, which change.
What we left out
Population and student counts, the station and bicycle-parking figures with their costs, and anything about what the wharf cellars hold today beyond the general remark above.
Quick answers
- Why is the Oudegracht on two levels? According to Wikipedia, locks finished in 1275 kept the water steady, which allowed dry cellars and quays at water level below the street.
- How tall is the Dom Tower? Wikipedia gives 112 m in one article and 112.32 m or 112.5 m in the tower’s own, and says it has 465 steps.
- Is the Rietveld Schröder House a World Heritage site? Yes. UNESCO says it was inscribed in 2000 as a manifesto of the De Stijl group’s ideals.
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Roam first. Shop later.