"Trippenhuis" Amsterdam Off The Beaten Path Tip by xiquinho

Trip House. As family home to the two Trip brothers, who made their fortune in gun dealing during the 17th-century Golden Age, this noted house's buckshot-gray exterior and various armament motifs -- including a mortar-shape chimney -- are easily explained. But what is most distinctive about this building is that its Corinthian-columned facade actually hides two symmetrical buildings (note the wall that bisects the middle windows), one for each brother. It went on in the 18th century to house both the Rijksmuseum collection and the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences before the latter became its sole resident. Be sure to look across the canal to No. 26, the door-wide white building topped with golden sphinxes and the date of 1696, which is known as both the "Little Trip House" and the "House of Mr. Trip's Coachman." The story goes that the smarty-pants coachman once remarked that he would be happy with a house as wide as the Trippenhuis door; not to be outsmarted, Mr. Trip went on to build just that with the leftover bricks. Or so the story goes; the Little Trip House is actually much bigger than it looks, and its completion date was long after either brother died.

othercontact: Kloveniersburgwal 29