Spaarndammerbuurt: the cathedral of social housing
Het Schip, two more de Klerk blocks, and a courtyard scaled like a hofje for working families. Walked and written by the editor.

1. Spaarndammerplantsoen
Start at the green strip the blocks face. Two of Michel de Klerk's three Amsterdam School blocks line it; read them as the warm-up before *Het Schip* itself.

2. Het Schip
De Klerk's 1919–1921 workers' palace — a triangular block of brick that ripples, curls and rises to a tower over nothing in particular. Walk the whole perimeter before deciding what it's for.

3. Museum Het Schip
The old post office room inside the block is now the museum, Tuesday to Sunday, 11–5. If you only step into one interior on this walk, make it the lavender-and-blue counter hall.

4. Zaanhof
A courtyard scaled like a *hofje* — the old almshouse plan — but dropped inside a 1920s workers' estate. Walk in through one of the arches; the quiet on the far side is the point.

5. Zaandammerplein
A small square the blocks gather around, less famous than its neighbour and better for it. Sit a moment; this is where the buurt is just itself.

6. Spaarndammerstraat
Land on the shopping street — bakeries, a butcher, a coffee or two — and let the brick reverie wear off over something to eat. Bus 22 runs back from here.

Spaarndammerbuurt: the cathedral of social housing