THE AMSTERDAM CANALS THROUGH THE EYES OF CRIS TOALA OLIVARES
A MENDO initiative mendo.nl
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INTRODUCTION
—
A different story every day
A little over eighty thousand residents. Eight thousand official monuments, largely canal buildings. Around fifteen hundred bridges and more than two hundred canals. Ninety kilometres of quayside. Around forty historic churches, albeit sometimes in use as pop concert hall or design studio. Three ship towers, two sluice gates still in operation and just one palace. Those are the facts. They tell the tale of a world-famous city built on water. A city with more canals than Venice and more bridges than Paris.
What Amsterdam does not have are
Toala Olivares this meant endless cycling over the
years later, when construction of the Canal Belt was
majestic avenues or imposing cathedrals to provide
canals. Having a chat. Pressing the button. Waiting
finally completed, work was immediately started on a
grandeur, nor are there any baroque palaces to show
a short while for the right light. Pressing the button
new urban expansion project with even more canals
off the splendour of wealthy nobility, as we find in
again. Then returning the next day. On and on until he
and bridges, until the construction of the Station Island
Venice. Amsterdam simply has its canals with their high,
and his trusty Leica camera almost became a tourist
in the nineteenth century gave the Amsterdam canals
restrained merchant houses which are, in fact, barely
attraction themselves. Thanks to his endless talking
their current shape. A city that conquered the water.
more than warehouses.
and observing, the Amsterdam canals surpass their
However the facts only tell us part of the
Knowing that, the stately merchant’s house
UNESCO World Heritage status and, through his lens,
on the Keizergracht, the crowded red roofs of the
story of Amsterdam’s canals. What they do not tell is
his photos manage to reduce the historical facts to an
Jordaan or the grand Westerkerk, once the highest
how it feels to live in a draughty seventeenth century
intimate story of people. The canals are not simply a
building in Amsterdam, shine even more in Cris Toala
canal building. Nor do they say how it is to work on a
static monument but the beating heart of a city where
Olivares’ photographs. But these historic facts - like the
street which is easier to reach by boat than by car. Or
people work, reflect, sleep, dance, laugh and love. A
innumerable bridges, canals and alleys - are merely
how around eighty thousand people cycle across the
place where people live and have done so for more
scenery against which people play the leading role.
canals to work every day, then take a refreshing dip
than seven centuries, although it seems they do so now
No longer is it the monumental warehouse that is so
in the water when they get home. What these facts
more than ever.
special, but rather the window cleaner who balances
do not tell you at all is how it feels to hear the sound
Of course, it is enlightening to know that
ten metres high up a ladder that leans against its
of laughter across the calm water on a balmy summer
in around 1300 Amsterdam was still just a small
facade - and who has a witty comment ready for every
evening, or to kiss your sweetheart under a wooden
dyke settlement called Aemstelledam with scarcely
tourist looking for the Anne Frank House. It is not the
bascule bridge. Many volumes have been written
a thousand inhabitants, although it had a thriving
centuries old brick bridge that calls for our admiration,
about this life on the Amsterdam canals, but still the
maritime trade. In around 1600, the population had
but the cyclist who fearlessly rides over it through the
whole story was yet to be told. Cris Toala Olivares
grown to fifty thousand meaning the city was literally
slippery snow. Even the Westertoren fades into the
has managed to do so. Perhaps the tale is best told
bursting at the seams, so in 1613 work was started on
background against a scant piece of roof that has been
with pictures rather than words, which makes this
the greatest urban development project in the world:
ingeniously converted into a shady garden. So we
photographer from Ecuador a born storyteller.
the construction of the Canal Belt. The construction of
never forget that it is people who make the city; not the
the three semi-circular canals, interconnected by an
other way around.
Photography is all about watching for just as long as it takes for a story to unfold before being
ingenious system of straight transverse canals, enabled
captured by a single press of the button. For Cris
the city to expand to five times its size. Almost sixty
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Toala Olivares’ photos seem so carefree; sometimes almost snapshots. But they are testament to
an unfailing insight into the story that needs to be told. Feeling exactly the right moment to press the shutter release follows intuitively. Call it mastery. Pressing the button just as there is a flash of genuine pride in the eyes of a canal building occupant. The amazement in the faces of foreign visitors. Click! The happiness of couples in love on the water and the concentration in the face of the restorer. In this book, they create not only a timeless ode but also a document of our own times, because life on the canals continues to change. The first solar-powered boats have already been launched and the street lamps use LEDs. The latest street fashion is flown in from New York today. The traditional “brown pub” offers wireless internet in addition to jenever. Cris Toala Olivares captures this dynamics of modern life in razor-sharp detail for Amsterdam’s locals and visitors alike, but what remains unaltered are the canals and bridges, the silent witnesses to the theatre performance that is played out time and again: everyday life.
Jeroen Junte Journalist & historian
HISTORIC FACTS - LIKE THE INNUMERABLE BRIDGES, CANALS AND ALLEYS - ARE MERELY SCENERY AGAINST WHICH PEOPLE PLAY THE LEADING ROLE.
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FOREWORD
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The photography of Cris Toala Olivares
The idea came from Jeroen Junte, a journalist who frequently writes for the Dutch edition of National Geographic. In 2011, he sent me an email suggesting a feature on the Amsterdam canal belt, to mark the four hundredth anniversary of this extraordinary urban phenomenon, which had also only recently been placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. We discussed the idea at our editorial meeting. There was some hesitation. Hasn’t that story already been told so many times? Sure, but what if instead of looking back, we write an article about how it is to live and work in a world heritage site? It wouldn’t be a historical story but a journalistic article, written from the present. That was the angle of the story that Jeroen Junte could go along with.
At National Geographic, image is
Geographic and I was impressed by his work. The first
magazine was already at the printer’s, he kept on
the guiding factor. This kind of angle would put
assignment he was given was a photo series for our
bombarding us with new pictures. You can see how
exceptional demands on the photography. Worldwide,
magazine about farmers in Bolivia who grow peanuts
driven he is in his work. Cris doesn’t just take nice
the Amsterdam canal belt is among the most
in the traditional way high up in the Andes. The story
photos for the sake of it; he wants his photography to
photographed subjects in the Netherlands. The
appeared in the August 2012 issue. Afterwards, Cris
convey a message. ‘I want to make people aware,
cliché of the picturesque bridges, Amsterdammers on
said, 'I regarded that shoot as my graduation exam.
I want to show them things that they would otherwise
bicycles and idyllically lit canals is always lurking, which
Only since that photo series, have I really dared to call
ignore. Regarding the story about the peanut farmers,
is the reason we decided to hand the assignment to
myself a photographer.'
I wanted to put faces to the lives of these small farmers
Cris Toala Olivares. Cris was born in Ecuador in 1982
Cris has enormous drive and tremendous
from the Andes. In my work about Amsterdam, I want
and has been an Amsterdam-based photographer for
determination. When he has got an idea in his head, he
to show the world that this city is more than sex and
several years, working for the press agency Reuters,
almost always manages to get it done with his friendly
drugs as is so often suggested in other countries.’
among others. In my opinion, Cris was the right man for
perseverance and this is how he set about the shoot
His genuine interest and boundless curiosity let him
the job because, as a photographer with international
about Amsterdam. He rang on people’s doorbells to
penetrate to the core of his subject - unabashed and
experience, he was enough of an outsider to be
ask if he could take photographs inside their houses,
without prejudice.
amazed, but enough of an insider to understand the
he flew over the city in a helicopter and he even called
city inside out.
the mayor for permission to visit one particular location.
original image of Amsterdam. ‘My photos are a
For a year he pedalled his red bicycle through the city,
reflection of who I am,’ he says. And his work is gaining
some time. In 2009, he won two Zilveren Camera
always on the lookout for something extraordinary to
an international audience. The story has been printed
Photography awards for a photograph of a tear gas
capture on camera.
in a number of other editions of National Geographic,
We have known Cris and his work for
attack in Gaza and for a portrait of a genocide survivor in Rwanda. One day, he came along to National
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Amsterdam caught hold of him. When the deadline for the assignment had passed and the
Through his work, Cris has created an
such as the Italian and Russian issues. In 2012, he exhibited his photos in Het Grachtenhuis Museum
WHEN QUIET RETURNS AT THE END OF A SUMMER’S DAY, IT IS AS THOUGH NOTHING HAS CHANGED IN CENTURIES.
(Museum of the Canals). A selection of his Amsterdam
luxury products, and yet the appreciation and the
four hundred years old and has been included on the
portfolio has appeared in leading magazines such
beauty of this historic residential area is greater than
UNESCO World Heritage list since 2010, it is a living
as Geo, Die Zeit and Stern and distributed across
ever. Most of the houses along the canal are in pristine
area, populated by a motley collection of extraordinary
the globe through Reuters World Wide. And now his
condition and the cultural life is blooming as it did in
and enterprising people.
images are filling this book. It is a good thing that this
the seventeenth century. When quiet returns at the end
photo series of the canal belt can be displayed on a
of a summer’s day, it is as though nothing has changed
Aart Aarsbergen
wider stage than a periodical publication allows.
in centuries. The warm glow of the evening sun falls
Editor-in-chief Dutch edition
on the red brick facades and in the distance, the peal
National Geographic Magazine
Four hundred years later, the canal belt is still Amsterdam’s showpiece and a popular place
of the Westerkerk bells can be heard over the gentle
for the cultural and intellectual elite to live and
lapping of the water against the houseboats’.
work. This might be what makes this part of the city
For many years, I was part of a group of
so special. Against the historical backdrop of 17th
people who are at the heart of Jeroen Junte and
century bourgeois splendour, the canal belt is a
Cris Toala Olivares’s story. For years I worked on
haven for creativity and innovation and, despite its
the Herengracht, in a building nestled between the
metropolitan allure, this part of Amsterdam is in many
Bible Museum and the then Netherlands Institute for
respects a village, with its narrow streets and alleys,
War Documentation (NIOD). From my room on the
neighbourhood cafés, small sandwich bars and snug
second floor, I had a great view of the Beulingsluis, and
houseboats. As Jeroen Junte concludes his article:
when I stretched out of my window, I could see the
‘Tourism and environmental pollution are a burden
beginning of what was once the most prestigious part
on daily life in the belt. The diversity among residents
of the canal: the Golden Bend. It is a gorgeous part of
and shops is giving way to the wealthy and uniform
Amsterdam because although the canal belt may be
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