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incongruous buildings – you can’t possibly miss its looming, geometrical brickwork. Now home to a conference centre and the Stadsarchief, the state archives, it started out as the headquarters of a Dutch shipping company, the Nederlandsche Handelsmaatschappij, before falling into the hands of the ABN-AMRO bank, which was itself swallowed by a consortium led by the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2007 – just before the worldwide banking crisis. Dating to the 1920s, the building is commonly known as De Bazel (www.debazelamsterdam.nl) after the architect Karel de Bazel (1869–1923), whose devotion to theosophy formed and framed his design. Founded in the late nineteenth century, theosophy combined metaphysics and religious philosophy, arguing that there was an over-arching spiritual order with reincarnation for all as an added bonus. Every facet of de Bazel’s building reflects this desire – or search – for order and balance from the pink and yellow brickwork of the exterior (representing male and female respectively) to the repeated use of motifs drawn from the Middle East, the source of much of the cult’s spiritual inspiration. At the heart of the building is the magnificent Schatkamer (Treasury; Tues–Sat 10am–5pm & Sun 11am–5pm; free), a richly decorated, Art Deco extravagance that feels rather like a royal crypt. Exhibited here is an intriguing selection of photographs and documents drawn from the city’s archives – anything from 1970s squatters occupying City Hall to hagiographic tracts on the virtues of the Dutch naval hero, Admiral de Ruyter and, perhaps best of the lot, photos of miscreants (or rather the poor and the desperate) drawn from police archives. The exhibits are changed regularly and in the basement there’s a small film studio showing documentaries about the city, both past and present.

The Grachtengordel | Grachtengordel south |

The Tassenmuseum Hendrikje

The delightful Tassenmuseum Hendrikje, Herengracht 573 (Purse & Bag Museum; daily 10am–5pm; €6.50; www.tassenmuseum.nl), holds a simply superb collection of handbags, pouches, wallets, bags and purses from medieval times onwards, exhibited on three floors of a sympathetically refurbished grand old mansion. The collection begins on the top floor with a curious miscellany of items from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Here you’ll find examples of several types of bag that preceded the purse – portefeuilles, chatelaines, frame-bags, reticules and stocking purses to name but five. The next floor down focuses on the twentieth century with several beautiful Art Nouveau handbags and a whole cabinet of 1950s specimens made of “hard plastic”, an early form of perspex. Another display features handbags made from animals – the eel, crocodile, python and lizard bags look attractive, as long as you don’t pause to think about how they were made, but the armadillo bag is really rather gruesome. The final floor is given over to temporary displays with contemporary bags and purses the favourite theme. The museum also has a pleasant café.

Close by, the facades of Herengracht 508–510 are worth close inspection: both have neck gables dating from the 1690s, and both sport sea gods straddling dolphins, while tritons – half-men, half-fish – trumpet through conch shells to pacify the oceans.

The Grachtengordel | Grachtengordel south |

The Museum Willet-Holthuysen

The Museum Willet-Holthuysen (Mon–Fri 10am–5pm, Sat & Sun 11am–5pm; €6; www.museumwilletholthuysen.nl), near the Amstel at Herengracht 605, is billed as “the only fully furnished patrician house open to the public”, which just about sums it up. The house dates from 1685, but the interior was remodelled by successive members of the coal-trading Holthuysen family until the last of the line, Sandra Willet-Holthuysen, donated her home and its contents to the city in 1895.

The Museum Willet-Holthuysen

The museum entrance is through the old servants’ door, leading into the basement, which holds a small collection of porcelain and earthenware. Up above are the family rooms, most memorably the Blue Room, which has