Instant Cities: Delft

Delft › Places and landmarks

Stadhuis

Delft’s Renaissance town hall at the west end of the Markt, built round a medieval stone tower.

See it in 3D Watch the tour

Photo: Natuur12, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

After a fire burnt the old town hall in 1618, Hendrick de Keyser built the new one in the Dutch Renaissance style, with red shutters and stone ornament against the brick.

He kept the 13th-century tower of the old one, Het Steen, which was once the town’s prison, so the medieval tower now rises from the middle of the 17th-century building. The Delft council still meets and marries couples here. Visit it in 3D ›

More in Delft

MarktThe long market square between the town hall and the Nieuwe Kerk, one of the largest in the Netherlands. Nieuwe KerkThe great Gothic church on the Markt, with a tower of 108 metres, where the princes of Orange lie buried. Oude KerkThe oldest church in Delft, on the Oude Delft, with a tower that leans about two metres over the canal. PrinsenhofThe old convent where William of Orange lived, and where he was shot in 1584. The bullet holes are still in the wall. Oude DelftThe oldest canal of the town, which gave Delft its name, lined with merchants’ houses and the Gemeenlandshuis. KoornmarktThe canal where the grain was traded, now lined with cafés, houseboats and terraces by the water. OostpoortThe last of Delft’s town gates, with two slim towers mirrored in the water. WaagThe weigh house by the Markt, where goods were weighed for the town’s taxes. Johannes VermeerThe painter of the Girl with a Pearl Earring and the View of Delft, who was born, worked and buried in Delft. Delfts blauwThe blue and white pottery that made Delft famous, first made to stand in for Chinese porcelain. Delftse DonderslagThe gunpowder explosion of 12 October 1654, which flattened a quarter of the town. Hugo de GrootThe lawyer born in Delft who wrote the first great book on the law between nations, and escaped from prison in a book chest.