Munttoren
Encyclopedia
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. It stands on the busy Muntplein
Muntplein (Amsterdam)
The Muntplein is a square in the centre of Amsterdam. The square is in fact a bridge — the widest bridge in Amsterdam — which crosses the Singel canal at the point where it flows into the Amstel river...
square, where the Amstel
Amstel
The Amstel is a river in the Netherlands which runs through the city of Amsterdam. The river's name is derived from Aeme stelle, old Dutch for "area abounding with water"....
river and the Singel
Singel (Amsterdam)
The Singel is a canal in Amsterdam which encircled the city in the Middle Ages. It served as a moat around the city until 1585, when Amsterdam expanded beyond the Singel. The canal runs from the IJ bay, near Central Station, to the Muntplein square, where it meets the Amstel river...
canal meet, near the flower market and the eastern end of the Kalverstraat
Kalverstraat
The Kalverstraat is the busiest shopping street of Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands. It is named after the kalvermarkt that was held here until the 17th Century....
shopping street.
The tower was originally part of the Regulierspoort, one of the main gates in Amsterdam's medieval city wall. The gate, built in the years 1480, consisted of two towers and a guard house.
After the gate went up in flames in a 1618 fire, only the guard house
Guardhouse
A guardhouse is a building used to house personnel and security equipment...
and part of the western tower remained standing. The tower was then rebuilt in Amsterdam Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
style in 1620, with an eight-sided top half and elegant open spire designed by Hendrick de Keyser
Hendrick de Keyser
Hendrick de Keyser was a Dutch sculptor and architect born in Utrecht, Netherlands, who was instrumental in establishing a late Renaissance form of Mannerism in Amsterdam...
, featuring a clockwork with four clockfaces and a carillon
Carillon
A carillon is a musical instrument that is typically housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are played serially to play a melody, or sounded together to play a chord...
of bells.
The carillon was made in 1668 by Pieter Hemony, who added new bells to the instrument that he and his brother François had made earlier for the tower of the Amsterdam stock exchange in 1651. In 1873, the original baton keyboard was removed from the carillon, in favor of changes to the clockwork mechanism. In 1960 a manual playing system and a manual baton keyboard was re-installed. Some of the original smaller Hemony bells have been damaged over the years and have been replaced by new bells in 1959 and 1993. The original smaller Hemony bells are now on display in the Amsterdam Historical Museum
Amsterdams Historisch Museum
The Amsterdam Museum, until 2011 called the Amsterdams Historisch Museum, is a museum about the history of Amsterdam. Since 1975, it is located in the old city orphanage between Kalverstraat and Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal.-History:...
. The current carillon consists of 38 bells (2 more than the original carillon had). A mechanism causes the bells to chime every quarter of an hour. On Saturdays, between 2 and 3 p.m., Gideon Bodden, the Amsterdam city carillonneur gives a live concert on the bells.
The name of the tower refers to the fact that it was used to mint coins in the 17th Century. In the Rampjaar
Rampjaar
The rampjaar was the year 1672 in Dutch history. In that year,the Republic of the Seven United Provinces was after the outbreak of the Franco-Dutch War and the Third Anglo-Dutch War attacked by England, France, and the prince-electors Bernhard von Galen, bishop of Münster and Maximilian Henry of...
("disastrous year") of 1672, when both England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
declared war on the Dutch Republic
Dutch Republic
The Dutch Republic — officially known as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands , the Republic of the United Netherlands, or the Republic of the Seven United Provinces — was a republic in Europe existing from 1581 to 1795, preceding the Batavian Republic and ultimately...
and French troops occupied much of the country, silver and gold could no longer be safely transported to Dordrecht
Dordrecht
Dordrecht , colloquially Dordt, historically in English named Dort, is a city and municipality in the western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the fourth largest city of the province, having a population of 118,601 in 2009...
and Enkhuizen
Enkhuizen
Enkhuizen is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland and the region of West-Frisia.Enkhuizen was one of the harbour-towns of the VOC, just like Hoorn and Amsterdam, from where overseas trade with the East Indies was conducted. It received city rights in 1355...
(where coins were normally minted), so the guard house of the Munttoren was temporarily used to mint coin.
The guard house is not the original medieval structure but a 19th Century fantasy. The original guard house, which had survived the fire of 1618 relatively unscathed, was replaced with a new building during 1885-1887 in Neo-Renaissance
Neo-Renaissance
Renaissance Revival is an all-encompassing designation that covers many 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Grecian nor Gothic but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range of classicizing Italian modes...
style. An underpass was added to the building during a 1938-1939 renovation.
The Munttoren will receive new foundations to prevent it from sagging during construction of the Noord/Zuidlijn, the new metro line. The city has allocated 1.9 million euros for this purpose, according to a May 17, 2006 report in the newspaper Het Parool
Het Parool
Het Parool is an Amsterdam-based daily newspaper. It was founded as a resistance paper during World War II by Frans Van Heuven Goedhart and Jaap Nunes Vaz...
.
Scale models of the tower are exhibited at Madurodam
Madurodam
Madurodam is a miniature city located in Scheveningen, The Hague, in the Netherlands. It is a model of a Dutch town on a 1:25 scale, composed of typical Dutch buildings and landmarks, as are found at various locations in the country. This major Dutch tourist attraction was built in 1952 and has...
in The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
and at Mini-Europe
Mini-Europe
-See also:* Madurodam — Model village in Netherlands containing miniature famous Dutch landmarks* Catalunya en Miniatura — miniature park located 17 km away from Barcelona, with an exhibition area of 35.000 m2 including all major buildings of Catalonia and of Antoni Gaudí* Bekonscot...
in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
.
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