Noorderkerk

The Noorderkerk, or Northern Church, sits in the Jordaan neighborhood with a symmetrical, cross-shaped layout that sets it apart from the city's other historic churches. While many older structures in Amsterdam were adapted from existing Catholic buildings, this church was designed from the ground up for Protestant worship between sixteen twenty and sixteen twenty-three. Its architecture, featuring an octagonal floor plan and four equal arms, reflects a deliberate focus on the spoken word, with the pulpit placed at the center so that all members of the congregation remained at roughly the same distance from the preacher.