Badass Tours

This building was the home of the VOC (Dutch East India Company), the world’s first multinational corporation and possibly the largest in history. It had colonies and trading posts in South Africa, Indonesia, India, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. You’re looking at a 19th-century façade, but the courtyard whose entrance is around the corner has the 17th-century doorway. It also has a monument to journalists whose plane crashed in 1949 when they were covering the Netherlands’ struggle to prevent Indonesian independence. When the Netherlands formally recognized Indonesia in December of that year, it was the end of the VOC colonies.

Dam Square with City Hall under construction