Montelbaanstoren

The Montelbaanstoren is a 48-metre brick watchtower from 1516 standing in the water of the Oudeschans canal in central Amsterdam. It is free to look at from the quayside at any hour, it is not open to the public inside, and it is one of the few surviving fragments of the city’s medieval waterside defences.

Montelbaanstoren at a glance

• Address: Oudeschans 2, 1011 KX Amsterdam, in the Centrum district near Nieuwmarkt.
• Built: 1516–1517 as a watchtower guarding the Lastage shipyard quarter.
• Present form: octagonal upper stage and lead-clad wooden spire added in 1606, designed by Hendrick de Keyser.
• Height: 48 metres (157.5 feet) since the 1606 rebuild.
• Nickname: Malle Jaap, or “Silly Jack,” after a clock that struck at random hours.
• Heritage status: national monument (rijksmonument) since 1970.
• Cost: free — it is an exterior landmark, viewed from the street, the quay and the surrounding bridges.
• Time needed: 10–15 minutes for photos, or 45–60 minutes if you walk the Oudeschans and Nieuwmarkt loop around it.

What the Montelbaanstoren actually is

Look closely and you are really looking at two buildings stacked on each other. The lower section is a squat, round, redbrick artillery tower from the early 1500s, built for soldiers and cannon rather than for views. The slender white top — the octagonal stage, the open lantern, the clock and the spire — was added almost a century later, when the tower had already lost its military job and the city decided to make it beautiful instead.

That split explains why the silhouette looks slightly mismatched in photos: heavy brick fortress below, delicate Renaissance carpentry above. It also explains the lean. The tower sits on soft, water-saturated ground, and the extra weight of the 1606 upper stage started it tilting almost immediately.

History of the tower

1516: a watchtower built out of fear

In 1512 troops of the Duke of Gelre attacked and burned the Lastage, the shipbuilding and trading quarter that lay outside Amsterdam’s medieval wall. The city’s response was practical: dig a new defensive canal, the Oude Schans, and build a tower at its edge from which guards could watch the IJ and the Zuiderzee for approaching ships. The Montelbaanstoren was that tower, finished around 1516.

The odd name is usually traced to “Monte Albano,” a name attached to the site in early city records and later reshaped by Amsterdam mouths into “Montelbaan.” The exact origin is still debated, which is a fair reminder that even well-documented landmarks keep a few loose ends.

1606: Hendrick de Keyser gives it a spire

Amsterdam’s great expansion of 1592 pushed the city limits outward and made the tower militarily useless. It was lowered and downgraded to a guardhouse and store. Then neighbours complained that they lived too far from the centre to hear any clock at all, and in August 1605 the city council agreed to raise the tower and fit it with a bell and clockwork.

The result, completed in 1606 and attributed to city architect and sculptor Hendrick de Keyser — the man behind the Westerkerk — was the octagonal brick stage and the two-storey open wooden crown sheathed in lead. The minute hand, incidentally, did not arrive until 1890.

Why locals call it Malle Jaap

Within a few years of the rebuild the tower began to sink. Its foundation was turf and clay on marshy soil, and the added weight tipped it out of true around 1610. The tilt shifted the bell just enough that the clapper came to rest against the metal, so the chimes fired off at absurd hours, then stayed mute for days at a stretch.

Amsterdammers named it Malle Jaap, “Silly Jack.” Seventeenth-century engineers hauled the tower partly back upright with ropes and manpower, which stopped the movement without ever fully correcting it. The faint lean you notice from the bridge is the leftover of that repair.

Rembrandt’s version of the tower

Rembrandt lived a short walk away, and the Montelbaanstoren appears in his work more than once: in an etched panorama of Amsterdam from about 1640–41, and in drawings from roughly 1644–45 now held by Museum het Rembrandthuis and the Rijksmuseum.

Here is the detail most guides miss. Rembrandt left the spire off. He wanted austere, timeless towers for the backgrounds of his biblical scenes, and De Keyser’s fashionable 1606 crown looked far too modern for that purpose. So the Montelbaanstoren in Rembrandt’s hand is a blunt square stump — a deliberate edit, not a mistake, and a small lesson in how artists shaped the Amsterdam we think we remember.

Demolition, water offices and monument status

The tower narrowly escaped demolition in 1852 and then spent decades as municipal office space: the city water office was based here around 1900, and a police post moved in by 1906. In August 1970 it was listed as a national monument, and it remains in use as offices today rather than as a museum.

Can you go inside or climb it?

No. There is no interior access for general visitors, no ticket desk, no staircase to climb and no viewing platform at the top. Any tour that promises a climb up the Montelbaanstoren is describing a different building — usually the Oude Kerk tower, the Westerkerk tower or the Zuiderkerk tower, all of which do offer guided climbs in season.

What you can do is free and available around the clock: walk the quays on both sides of the Oudeschans, cross the bridges at either end, and see the tower from the water on almost any canal cruise that runs through the eastern ring.

Getting there

• On foot: roughly a 10-minute walk east from Amsterdam Centraal, or 5 minutes from Nieuwmarkt.
• By metro: Nieuwmarkt is the nearest station; walk east past the Sint Antoniesbreestraat toward the Oudeschans.
• By boat: most eastern-loop canal cruises pass it, and it is one of the easiest towers to photograph from water level.
• By bike: straightforward, with racks along the quay — but expect them to be full at peak times.
• By car: avoid it. On-street parking in the Centrum neighborhood is scarce and among the most expensive in Europe; a P+R on the city edge plus public transport costs far less.

Best photo spots and times

• The bridge at the north end of the Oudeschans gives the classic head-on composition, tower centred with houseboats leading the eye in.
• The western quay in the late afternoon puts the sun behind you and lights the brick warmly; the white spire stops blowing out once the light softens.
• Early morning on a still day is the only reliable window for a clean mirror reflection in the canal.
• Winter dusk is underrated here — the lit spire against a blue-hour sky needs no crowd management at all.
• Shoot slightly off-axis if you want the lean to read in the frame; straight-on angles hide it.

Because this is a street-level landmark rather than a ticketed historical landmark with an entrance queue, you are never fighting a timed slot — only the weather and the light.

What to combine it with

The Montelbaanstoren works best as a 10-minute stop inside a longer eastern-centre walk rather than as a destination on its own. It sits between several stronger anchors, all within about 10 minutes on foot.

• Museum het Rembrandthuis, which holds one of the tower drawings and closes the loop on the Rembrandt story.
• Nieuwmarkt and the Waag, the 15th-century city gate that survived for much the same reason this tower did.
• Scheepvaartmuseum and the replica East Indiaman, which explain the harbour the tower was built to watch.
• The Oudeschans houseboats, an easy, quiet walk that most visitors to the busier attractions in Amsterdam never make.
• Cafés along Sint Antoniesbreestraat and Nieuwmarkt for coffee, apple pie or a broodje before you carry on.

Accessibility and practical notes

Since the visit happens entirely outdoors, accessibility is about the surrounding streets rather than the building. The quays along the Oudeschans are flat and paved, and the tower is fully visible from level ground, so wheelchair and pushchair users can get a clear view without any climb.

• Surfaces: brick and cobble in places, with occasional uneven joints and canal-side kerbs and no railings on some stretches.
• Bridges: the approach bridges have gentle ramps rather than steps, though they can be busy with cyclists.
• Toilets: none at the tower; use a nearby café or the public facilities around Nieuwmarkt.
• Shelter: almost none on the quay, so check the forecast and carry a light waterproof layer year-round.
• Footwear: comfortable shoes with grip, because wet brick along the water gets slick.

Frequently asked questions