Amsterdam Insights: Houses as Small as a Front Door
A couple of days ago I wrote about the house with the smallest facade in Amsterdam (here).
Amsterdam has more of these tiny houses. The smallest house of my home city is at Oude Hoogstraat at number 22. It has 4 floors and is about 5 meters deep and is only 2,02 meter wide.
This house also known as the smallest house in Europe. If that claim is true, I must say I cannot tell. What I do know it is pretty tiny.
Image: Smallest house of Amsterdam
Another tiny house in Amsterdam is at the Kloverniersburgwal number 26. The facade is 2,44 meters wide and is called "Het Kleine Trippenhuis" also know as "Huis van de koetsier van de heer Trip"; translated in English this means something like "House of the coachman of mister Trip".
Image: "Het Kleine Trippenhuis" once home to the coachman of brothers Trip
Opposite to "Het Kleine Trippenhuis", is the "Trippenhuis"; with its 22 meters facade this is considered the widest house of Amsterdam. Around 1660 the brothers Trip (earned their fortune with trading) lived here. The story goes, their coachman ones said: "I will be very happy with a house equal to the width of the front door of my masters". When the brothers Trip heard this, they ordered to build "Het Kleine Trippenhuis" for their coachman.
Image: "Trippenhuis" once home to brothers Trip
ENJOY
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There are a lot of houses with fronts under 3m , in my town and 3 more I know it. I think in my town it's 2,20m.
I always wonder how you get big things - like a bed - up and down in those houses.
In Amsterdam, through the windows. At the top of the house they usually build a hook and with a rope goods were/are lifted up and pulled through the window of the floor it needs to be. Several hundreds of years ago, many houses in the city centre of Amsterdam were storage houses, ie not for living. Boats would bring goods brought and collected from all over the world to these storage houses through the so many canals we have build for that purpose. These hooks at the top of the building were invented to bring the goods to the right floors. Still today, many of bigger goods are lifted through the air in and out of the houses through the windows. Throughout the city you can rent the so called "Hout en Blok" translated to English something like "Rope and Block". This is a long rope with a hook on one of its ends and a pulley that needs to be attached to the hook at the top of the house.
Image: Guy hanging the Pulley at the Hook on top of a House
Yeah, but that small house has that not and definitely not the ones here where I live.
You mean your small houses are a lot bigger? :)
no, they just have nothing where you can move things up outside and into the window (often having windows where you would have a hard time climbing through so small as they are)
Ok ok, than I guess they build the big stuff insight the house, maybe go to Ikea and get their products. Most pieces will fit through small areas and then build it together in the house itself. Like Lego :)
Awesome post and info . I really miss Amsterdam and find it one of my all time favourite cities in Europe.
Thank you!
nice urban oddities from the amazing Amsterdam ;)
We have more of those stories from our tiny little city :) Thank you for appreciating it!
Interesting :-)
I have been watching HGTV on my cable and always fascinated at tiny houses. It forces us to keep things to a minimum and having lesser possessions really appeals to me.
Although i don't know HGTV, it is indeed what you say "It forces to keep things to a minimum and having lesser possessions really appeals to me". Very interesting indeed, the many items we posses and the few we actually us. For years I had large volumes of possessions stored in boxes, never opened them, therefor telling me it are all possessions that I can do without. Ok, also photo's were packed up, and I do not want to get ride of them, but most of the stuff I started to sell or mostly give away to others who actually could us it. I also love the new share economy services like Peerby / PeerbyGo allowing you to share with your neighbours any item you may us only once so ofter. SnappCar allowing you to share (for a cost) your car with others. This will reduce the number of items that we will possesses dramatically. Now these services are just started and the culture of the people still need to change from owning and using, to owning and sharing, but the first steps are being made.
Nice to share! And really agree with the sharing concept! HGTV is actually a television network and their main focus is on anything related to homes and renovation. :)
HGTV must also bring the tiny house concepts like the new ones, like those that can be build in a day, maybe even telling about the 3d printed houses that are emerging. Cool such network exist. Must be in the USA, or? We do not have such TV channel in The Netherlands.
Very interesting! We saw the narrowest house during one of the canal tours the weekend of SteemFest. Seeing these pictures makes me want to go back.
A great way discovering Amsterdam is indeed with a canal tour. Super you had that experience! Well, some weeks ago I suggested to have our next SteemFest in Prague, they have a Bitcoin bar and has a super nice old city (looks really like coming straight from a fairy tail), but maybe it shall be Amsterdam again! :)
And if not an official SteemFest, we can create an unofficial SteemFest ourselves :)