The area, where the Laboean, Bindjeij and Medan warehouses were built, was known as the Braker Buiten Polder in the mid-19th century.

On September 14 in the same year, the construction progressed so far that the founder and director of the Deli Company, Peter Wilhelm Janssen, could lay the foundation stone.

In 1897, during the great city expansions of Amsterdam, George Hendrik Breitner recorded the construction pits and piling activities on Van Diemenstraat.

[4] The warehouses Laboean, Bindjeij and Medan near the Westerkanaal and close to the Westerkeersluis (flood barrier) can be seen in the background of these pictures and paintings made by Breitner.

Due to the new main entrance the original house numbers Houtmankade 20-24 were changed into Nova Zemblastraat 2A-6L.

The warehouses are designed in a neo-Renaissance style with elements such as stepped gables (with triangular and semicircular frontons), consoles and decorative bands with yellow brickwork.

Inside, the cast-iron columns, together with the robust wooden beams on which the floors rest, still reinforce the load-bearing structure of the warehouses.

The wooden beams were driven into a deeper layer of sand that is solid enough to bear the weight of the building.

[8] The wooden piles are located under the inside and outside walls of the building and underneath the 15 cast-iron columns, which are fitted indoors.