Winkel van Sinkel

De Winkel van Sinkel was the first department store in The Netherlands, built between 1837 and 1839 and located at Oudegracht 158 in Utrecht.

The Winkel van Sinkel Company started as a fabric store in Amsterdam, and after multiple expansions became a department store, but it was the branch in Utrecht with its expansive range of merchandise that truly established it as a concept in Dutch popular culture, "Winkel van Sinkel" having become a general term for shops where all kinds of different goods are for sale.

In the first half of the nineteenth century fabric traders such Clemens and August Brenninkmeyer (C&A), Cloppenburg (Peek and Cloppenburg) and Kreymborg came to the Netherlands from Oldenburg or Westphalia in what is now Germany, where they started as simple peddlers (marskramers in Dutch) and later established renowned companies.

On March 15, 1834, he bought the buildings of the former Sint-Barbara and Sint-Laurensgasthuis and the two houses that stood between it and his shop (and some cellars) on the Oudegracht.

The municipal council urged Sinkel to urgently or otherwise fence off the site with a wall on both the canal side and the Neude.

The designer of the new building on the Oudegracht and the coach house on Vinkenburgstraat was the Rotterdam city architect Pieter Adams.

In addition to the four caryatids, four cast-iron figures have been placed on the facade as symbols of commerce, prudence, seafaring and hope.

[4] The Amsterdam Winkel van Sinkel on Nieuwendijk is now a branch of discount store HEMA.