Grand Hotel Amrâth Amsterdam

This guide to the Grand Hotel Amrâth Amsterdam traces the site from 1595, when explorer Cornelis Houtman launched the first Dutch expedition to the East Indies, to 1913, when six shipping companies commissioned architect Johan van der Mey to build a headquarters worthy of their empire. It follows the two hundred types of stone in the facade, the sculpted seafarers' heads, and the stained-glass dome mapping the world's shipping routes, then the decline that followed the Second World War. Look for the wrought-iron anchors and tridents worked into the ironwork as you listen.