Spui Square a Book Lover’s Paradise

In a city famous for unsavoury entertainment, it is a lovely surprise to stumble into Spui square. The area, known as the intellectual heart of Amsterdam, is home to a surprising history as well as the literary accomplishments of the past and present.

Spui was originally a body of water that formed the southern limits of Amsterdam in the 1400s. By 1882, the Spui was filled in, becoming the bustling square that it is today. Relatively car-free and bordered by the shopping district on one side and the historic canal belt on the other, this square is a center of activity unto itself, even if it is far north from the true center at the Dam square.

The intellectual tag at Spui comes from a decades long link to the most academic and forward thinking individuals in Dutch history. Just a stones throw away stands the University of Amsterdam. The third oldest university in the Netherlands, it is here that famous minds were fostered, including a slew of Nobel Prize winners and future government leaders of the country.

Perhaps most notable character from Spui square, however, was the counter-culture activist Robert Jasper Grootveld. Famed for starting the worldwide hippy movement, he first held beatnik activities called 'happenings' in Spui. Attracting huge hordes of young, disaffected youth, his happenings grew to a political movement that inspired the Provo movement and helped draw attention to social reforms and laid the groundwork for Holland's cannabis laws.

Today, Spui is less of an arena for Dutch subculture. Rather, it is a lively center of international ideas in the form of art and the written word. Besides the fact that Amsterdam's two largest English book shops call the area home (The American Book Center and Waterstone's), the square also hosts a weekly open air book market. Each Friday, stalls are erected offering second hand books in a collection of languages, as well as rare literary publications and other vintage and novel finds.

With this quiet, underappreciated background, Spui square is much like a haven. A place to relax, read and relive a history that has helped shape the modern Netherlands as much as those famous coffeeshops and red light attractions.