The Spaarndammerbuurt is where Dutch social housing decided to be beautiful, and it has never quite been bettered. Three kilometres, almost flat, built around one building so good the rest of the neighbourhood organises itself in its shadow — Het Schip, Michel de Klerk's brick ship that carries nobody anywhere.
Start at the Spaarndammerplantsoen, the green the blocks face onto. Two of de Klerk's three blocks line it, and you should read them first: the rounded corners, the ironwork, the way the brick is laid like something woven rather than stacked. Then walk to Het Schip itself, built 1919–1921, and circle the whole triangle slowly. The tower goes up over nothing; the windows change shape for no reason but joy. Come at afternoon, when the low light gets into the brick and the whole thing turns the colour of a banked fire.
The old post office is now Museum Het Schip — open Tuesday to Sunday — and the counter hall in lavender and blue is worth the ticket. Then north to the Zaanhof, a courtyard built to the scale of a hofje, and you end back on the Spaarndammerstraat shops with the bus 22 home.
