Oude Kerk Amsterdam

The Oude Kerk’s roots go all the way back to the Middle Ages. An icon of the Iconoclastic Fury, it occupies a unique place in the cultural landscape of the Netherlands. The Oude Kerk is Amsterdam’s oldest building. It was dedicated to the patron saint of the people of Amsterdam, Saint Nicholas, in 1306. Built originally as a small wooden chapel, the city’s pars pro toto grew into the imposing Gothic hall church of today. The Oude Kerk was the site of the Iconoclastic Fury. On 23 August 1566, an angry crowd forced its way into the church and destroyed statues, stained glass windows and altarpieces. From 1578, the Oude Kerk was no longer Roman Catholic. Traces of this important moment in Dutch history are still visible today. The Oude Kerk is the final resting place of more than 20,000 of Amsterdam’s citizens, including artist Rembrandt van Rijn’s wife Saskia van Uylenburgh, who was buried here on 15 June 1638; Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck found a final resting place next to the sanctuary after a musical life as the Roman Catholic organist of the Protestant Oude Kerk. The building includes numerous resting places of famous and forgotten seventeenth-century Amsterdam citizens. The Oude Kerk commissioned artisans, organ builders, stonemasons, artists, organists and painters whose pieces together form its permanent collection. With their work the artists immortalized the people of Amsterdam, their music and the church interior. This is today’s heritage. The church continues this tradition by its commissions to contemporary artists.