In a previous post I was showing the beauty of the canal houses of Amsterdam. One feature that makes these houses so special and unique is the façade that every one of them is adorned with. The façade is the house’s presentation card, the one element that completes the whole. They were specifically built to show something about the people who lived there — through their decorations and inscriptions, in the past, the façades could indicate the wealth or the occupation of the owners. Nowadays, even if they are well maintained and restored to their original form, they don’t tell stories about the actual owners — they tell stories about the past. I like to quietly pass by the houses, searching for some indication on the façades about their history, or just to imagine, looking at the style, what kind of people would have lived in that house.