Seeing Hidden Worlds and Histories

Updated: May 25, 2020

Canon Zeedijk: Walking an Amsterdam Street Throughout the Centuries

Seeing Hidden Worlds

I talked with Joanna van der Zanden, a Dutch curator, writer, and educator last summer. She is one of the originators of the Repair Manifesto and repair cafes, which have spread worldwide. I asked her what skills she thought were valuable for today’s students to have. She thought for a moment, and said they should be able “to see hidden worlds”. She mentioned the important of noticing connections, relooking at the familiar, and seeing the potential, and using a new eye all as ways of noticing invisible worlds and ultimately forging new connections.

Zeedijk street in the center of Amsterdam

The Meeting

I met Dutch historian Dionys de Hoog, a friend of a friend, this past summer in Amsterdam. I had heard he was working on an online map of Amsterdam, combining a few of my favorite things: Amsterdam, maps, and hidden histories.

He showed me some of the basics of the website on a friend's iPhone, and I was enthralled. It was a manifestation of things we love to look at in Mapping Meaning.

His project, Canon of Zeedijk, maps the architectural structures of Zeedijk, a busy street in the center of Amsterdam, combining tourism, escapees from the Red Light District tourist throngs, or those of us looking for some amazing Chinese food at Nam Kee. It shows the street's structures over time, and incremental changes on the street since the 1500s. These changes point to social and historical events, and the various powers that led to different uses of the plot that now holds a Buddhist temple. The maps show how the changes to a physical space, to brick and mortar, can reveal events, morals, and powers.

Dio is working with 3D digital artist Daan Claessen, and several Amsterdam educational and city organizations to create this interactive historical map.

Mission Statement from the website:

Goal:With this project we hope to make the residents and entrepreneurs of the Zeedijk even more proud of their street. If that succeeds ... then we also manage to make them deal better with the street and with each other.*

The maps represent both the physicality of Zeedijk, and uncovers the stories behind the physical. It hints at the stories of the people who lived their in the past, and who live there now. Connections are established across time, to the present: from Catholic monastery in the 1500s before the Protestant Reformation, to Jewish quarter before WW2, and after the war robbed Zeedijk of it's inhabitants the area declined. Post war the city tore down the buildings now in disrepair to build a playground. Once the playground was overrun by drugs coming in from the neighboring Red Light District, the present day Chinese temple was built as an anchor for the street's current community with it's own interesting story, like most things Dutch, related to the VOC and trade of the Netherlands (link below). As inhabitants changed, changes were made to the structures to repurpose and at times "fix" problems, such as the drug problem in the 1970s playground.

One of the most exciting aspects of it is a call for the public to contribute stories, old photos, and documents. Documents in archives tell stories, but this is a living, breathing neighborhood that demands current updating. Including the citizens to contribute to the history and experiences of Zeedijk, highlights a democratic and social aspect, and encourages a public connection to the project.

Community is a focal point.

Zeedijk in 1979 featuring a playground creating an open space for the city's youth

The Workings of the Site

To experience it best, go to the website (link below), take a short tour (available in English as well), and explore. Each “?” link takes you to source material about the buildings at various points in time. This includes specific historical imagery, and their archival provenance. As you navigate the site, you can change views, and years.

Questions come up, about the history of the street, the town, and the country, and the people who lived there, and live there now: Why was the convent abandoned? Why did the buildings in a Jewish neighborhood fall into disrepair? Why was there a need for playgrounds in Amsterdam post WW2? Why was the playground plagued with heroin-users? Who decided what progress was?

“Inquisitiveness and sensitivity are always important for me. I always ask myself why something is the way it is. A new world opened up when I began to study architecture. I became aware of what it means to design and build in a complex social environment, to intervene and change it.”

Malkit Shoshan, architect, Harvard Grad School of Design

Change Makers, R. Jongewaard & A. Van Kesteren, 2017, Boijmans Museum

Classroom Concepts to Explore

Some ideas this project stimulates for teaching and beyond:

First hand sources: How connecting parts of a story can form a greater whole
Interactive navigation: How the viewer becomes the author or detective in this search; you can research your own questions, and investigate various angles.
How to represent time: To think not just about the movement through a space physically, but through time; what was there before you? How did you come to this space? What allowed for it? (We have projects about representing how one moves through space in time, I would love to consider moving through time while in one locus).
Making a community more curious about their neighborhood: How does a community become more curious? More informed? Knowledge is powerful way to create community.
Learning to read a space: When you walk down a street everyday, what do you notice? Do different façade treatments mean the Jewish grocery store was once part of a Catholic convent? Can you imagine that what is now a Buddhist temple, was previously a open public space?
The importance of primary sources: How do you tell myth or assumption from accurate narratives? And while two sources can both provide information, how do we read the spaces in between to gain a fuller insight? To flesh out the story? A student's or citizen's ability to piece together information creates a greater narrative, and both social and civic involvement.