2 Best Sights in The Randstad, Netherlands

Just off the Grote Markt, and tucked into a small gabled building above a shop, this house honors a family of World War II resistance fighters who successfully hid a number of Jewish families before being captured by the Germans in 1944. Most of the ten Boom family died in the concentration camps, but Corrie survived and returned to Haarlem to tell the story in her book, The Hiding Place. The family clock shop is preserved on the street floor, and their living quarters now contain displays, documents, photographs, and memorabilia. Visitors can also see the hiding closet, which the Gestapo never found, even though they lived six days in the house hoping to starve out anyone who might be concealed here. The upstairs living quarters are not accessible through the shop, but via the side door of No. 19, down a narrow alley beside the shop. Meeting instructions giving the time of the next guided tour are posted on the door; note that the last tour begins 30 minutes before the posted closing times.

This house, about a mile east of the city center, exemplifies several key principles of the De Stijl movement that affected not only art but also modern architecture, furniture design, and even typography in the early part of the 20th century. The house was designed for the Schröder family by Gerrit Rietveld, one of the leading architects of De Stijl, who has many objects on view in Utrecht's Centraal Museum. The open plan, the direct communion with nature from every room, and the use of neutral white or gray on large surfaces—with primary colors to identify linear details—are typical De Stijl characteristics. Rietveld is best known outside Holland for his Red and Blue Chair. Tours must be reserved online in advance.