De Wolkenkrabber, Art Deco residential tower at Victorieplein, Netherlands
De Wolkenkrabber is a residential tower at Victorieplein in Amsterdam, holding 24 apartments across 12 floors and two commercial spaces at street level. The building stands about 130 feet (40 meters) tall and is clad in yellow-brown brick, with continuous balconies running along all of its exterior facades.
The building was designed by architect Jan Frederik Staal and completed in 1932, making it Amsterdam's first high-rise apartment complex. Its construction showed that vertical housing was a real option for the city at a time when such projects were still rare in the Netherlands.
De Wolkenkrabber belongs to the Amsterdam School style, which combined decorative brickwork with clean, geometric forms, and it remains one of the clearest examples of that approach in the Netherlands. The rows of balconies running along every side give the building a strong visual rhythm that draws the eye from a distance.
The tower stands at Victorieplein, a central square in the south of Amsterdam that is easy to reach on foot or by public transit. Since the building is a private residence, the interior is not open to visitors, but the exterior can be seen clearly from all sides of the square.
When it opened in 1932, the building earned its nickname 'De Wolkenkrabber', meaning 'skyscraper' in Dutch, a word that was barely used in the Netherlands at the time. Each apartment came with central heating, a garbage chute, and electric bells, a combination of features that very few residential buildings offered in that era.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 60,000 contributors worldwide.
