The Oude Kerk (English: Old Church) is Amsterdam's oldest building and newest art institute (since 2012).

The church stood for only a half-century before the first alterations were made; the aisles were lengthened and wrapped around the choir in a half circle to support the structure.

Not long after the turn of the 15th century, north and south transepts were added to the church creating a cross formation.

Throughout the 16th-century battles, the church was looted and defaced on numerous occasions, first in the Beeldenstorm of 1566, when a mob destroyed most of the church art and fittings, including an altarpiece with a central panel by Jan van Scorel and side panels painted on both sides by Maarten van Heemskerck.

Above the screen is the text, The prolonged misuse of God's church, were here undone again in the year seventy-eight, referring to the Reformation of 1578.

The bust of famous organist and composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562–1621) celebrates the lifetime he spent playing in the church.

His early career began at the age of fifteen when he succeeded his deceased father Pieter Swybertszoon as the Oude Kerk's organist.

[citation needed] In the Holy Sepulchre is a small Rembrandt exhibition, a shrine to his wife Saskia van Uylenburgh[4] who was buried here in 1642.

The foundations were set on an artificial mound, thought to be the most solid ground of the settlement in this marshy province.

Artists including Nicolas Jaar, Marinus Boezem, Christian Boltanski, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller were commissioned by the Oude Kerk to create site-specific installations.

[6] In mid-March each year, Catholics arrive at the Oude Kerk to celebrate the "Miracle of Amsterdam" that occurred in 1345.