Mirroring Two Golden Ages Values and Visions in Seventeenth- and Nineteenth-Century Amsterdam

As this chapter is being prepared, an oversized three-dimensional (3D) printer called KamerMaker (RoomMaker) is printing a full-size canal house in Amsterdam (Figure 6.1). 1 With this ‘research by doing’ project, architects, engineers and various public and private sponsors are presenting as well as shaping an image of the city as smart, creative, sustainable and social. The project therefore neatly fits in Amsterdam’s ambition to become the creative metropolis of Europe by 2020. 2 With their references to the famous canals and the canal houses, as well as Golden Age citymaking in general, creators and sponsors of the 3D Print Canal House are also tapping into Amsterdam’s heritage. 3 In fact, they could go even further because the current building site of the 3D printer is situated in almost exactly the same spot as the stedenmaagd in a 1611 profile of Amsterdam (Figure 6.2).