Reading a canal house from the top down

By Porter Lang

Look up first. The top of an Amsterdam canal house is a working part, and the shape of it tells you roughly when the front was built or rebuilt. This is the practical version: five shapes, the dates three sources give for them, and the places the sources disagree.

What the gable is for

The Amsterdam for Visitors site, a visitor blog, defines the gable as the section of wall between the edges of a dual-pitched roof, and says it is decorative and functional, because the winches in the gables are still used to lift heavy or bulky items to the top floors. The Buffalo Architecture and History site says the gable disguised the steepness of the roof under which goods were stored, and that items are hoisted through windows because the stairways are quite narrow. The Grachtenmuseum says that on eighteenth-century raised cornices there was a hatch in the raised part, so the hoisting beam could be reached more easily. Three sources, one idea: the top of the house is a crane.

Step gable, trapgevel

The Grachtenmuseum, a museum devoted to the canals, dates step gables to about 1600 to 1665, and says the steps often start as early as the first floor, which makes the houses look lower. Buffalo Architecture gives the same range, 1600 to 1665.

Spout and pointed gables

Here the vocabulary splits. The Grachtenmuseum uses the term pointed gable, dates it to about 1620 to 1720, and says it was mostly used on warehouses, which is why you find more of them on the Prinsengracht and on Uilenburg than on the stately Herengracht. It describes warehouse windows with semicircular tops, often shuttered. Some guides call this shape a spout gable. We cannot say whether the museum’s pointed gable and a spout gable are the same shape under two names, so if a guide uses either word, ask what shape they mean.

Neck gable, halsgevel

The Grachtenmuseum dates neck gables to about 1640 to 1770 and says the first was designed by Philips Vingboons for Herengracht 168, the building that houses the museum. It describes the neck as formed by two ninety-degree angles, often decorated with fruit or flowers. The blog gives 1638 to 1780, says the first real example went up in 1636 at the same address, and says the corners are filled with sandstone pieces, often with a shell motif and a cartouche. Buffalo Architecture gives 1640 to 1840. Three ranges for one shape.

Bell gable, klokgevel

The museum dates the bell gable to about 1660 to 1790, and describes it as the neck gable with the right angles rounded. The blog gives the same range and calls the bell gable an evolution of the neck gable. Buffalo Architecture says only that it was popular from the late seventeenth century. The blog says the bell gables built before 1700 were lower and simpler, and the museum says of both neck and bell gables that the seventeenth-century form is often somewhat lower than the eighteenth-century one. The blog’s example is Keizergracht 50, built in 1622 with a step gable and given a bell gable in a renovation of 1783.

Cornice, lijstgevel

The museum says that from about 1790 pointed, step, neck and bell gables were no longer built, and the plain cornice facade took over, without sculpture, in use until about 1920. It adds that the styles occur throughout the country, and shows a cornice facade in ‘s-Hertogenbosch.

Where the shape came from

The museum says these styles occur throughout the country, and the Amsterdam for Visitors blog says they appear in Belgian cities too.

Dates in order

1600 to 1665: step gables, according to the museum and Buffalo Architecture.
1636: first real neck gable, according to the blog; 1640 start, according to the museum.
1660 to 1790: bell gables, according to the museum and the blog.
About 1790: the older gable types stop being built, according to the museum.
Until about 1920: cornice facades, according to the museum.

Side by side

The three sources agree on the order, step then neck then bell then cornice, and differ on the edges.

What we left out

We left out house prices, museum prices and opening hours, the names of cafes in canal houses, and any claim about who lives in them now.

Quick answers

What is a neck gable? According to the Grachtenmuseum, a neck gable has two ninety-degree angles that form a neck, often decorated with fruit or flowers, and dates from about 1640 to 1770.

Why do Amsterdam canal houses have beams at the top? The Amsterdam for Visitors blog says the winches are still used to lift heavy or bulky items, and Buffalo Architecture says stairways are narrow.

Which gable came first, step or bell? The Grachtenmuseum dates step gables to about 1600 to 1665 and bell gables to about 1660 to 1790, so the step gable came first.

Roam first. Shop later.

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