Netherlands Trading Society

For the next 140 years the NHM developed a large international branch network and increasingly engaged in banking operations.

According to the king, the NHM would act to leverage economic activity and encourage the development of national wealth.

However, in practice it came down to expanding existing trade, by gathering data and searching for new markets as well as financing industry and shipping.

The establishment of the NHM can be seen as an attempt to bring new impetus to trade with the Dutch East Indies after the depression of the years of French domination (1795–1814), and the final collapse of the VOC two decades earlier.

It was originally built in 1919–1926 for the NHM and it is decorated with many details reminiscent of Indonesia, most notably the brickwork, which earned the building the nickname "spekkoek" It was later repurposed as the Amsterdam Archives.