A calm, carefully planned residential district south of the Amstel, built in brick to Berlage's vision and laid out around streets named after Dutch rivers.
The Rivierenbuurt, the river quarter, is where to go if you care about how Amsterdam built itself in the 1920s and 1930s. It is quiet, almost entirely residential, and was designed as one piece rather than thrown up street by street. Few tourists come here, which is part of the appeal: you see the city as people actually live in it, in some of the best brick architecture the country produced.
South of the Amstelkanaal, around Victorieplein and the Maasstraat; the river-named streets fan out from there.
This is the showpiece of Plan Zuid, the southern expansion the architect H.P. Berlage drew up in 1915 and the city adopted in 1917. Berlage set the street plan - the broad axes, the closed blocks, the squares - and a generation of Amsterdam School architects filled it in. The result is street after street of expressive brickwork: rounded corners, ribbon windows, sculpted doorways, little towers and ladder-like balconies, all in warm Dutch brick.
The landmark is De Wolkenkrabber, the skyscraper, on Victorieplein. Designed by J.F. Staal and finished in 1932, its twelve storeys made it the first residential high-rise in the Netherlands, and locals named it before it was even done. Stand on Victorieplein with the Berlage-designed bridge and the surrounding blocks and you get the whole ambition of the plan in one view.
Come for the architecture and the quiet. The Rivierenbuurt rewards an unhurried walk more than a checklist, down the Maasstraat shopping street, around Merwedeplein, along the Amstelkanaal.
It is also a place with weight. Many Jewish families settled here in the 1930s, and Anne Frank lived at Merwedeplein 37 with her family from 1933 until they went into hiding in 1942. A small statue of her stands on the square. The neighbourhood carries that history plainly, without a visitor industry built around it.
Among the safest parts of the city. It is residential and calm, with no nightlife to speak of and little foot traffic late in the evening. The only practical note is that it really is a place where people live - not much is open late, so plan to eat or drink elsewhere if you are here at night.
Almost every street is named after a river - the Maasstraat, Rijnstraat, Vechtstraat, Waverstraat and so on - which is how the river quarter got its name. It was laid out in the 1920s and 1930s as part of Berlage's Plan Zuid.
Mainly the architecture: Amsterdam School brick throughout, De Wolkenkrabber on Victorieplein (the first residential high-rise in the Netherlands, from 1932), and the squares Berlage planned. Merwedeplein, where Anne Frank lived before going into hiding, is here too, marked by a small statue.
If you like architecture or want to see a quiet, lived-in part of Amsterdam away from the crowds, yes. If you are after sights, shops and nightlife, it is not that kind of place - treat it as a walk rather than a destination.