Every design for Zutphen

By 300 AD a Germanic settlement took hold on low river dunes where the Berkel flows into the IJssel, and unlike so many others of its kind it never emptied. Zutphen has been lived in ever since, which makes it one of the oldest towns in the Netherlands, and only Utrecht and Deventer received town rights before it.

There is a deep sense of continuity in walking its streets. The Groenmarkt, Houtmarkt and Zaadmarkt follow the line of a ring wall raised after the Vikings ravaged the town in 882. The houses rebuilt in brick after the great fires still stand in their dozens, and the gates and towers, the Drogenapstoren, the Berkelpoort and the Spanjaardspoort, still frame the way in. In the Librije beside the St. Walburgis Church, one of only five medieval libraries left in Europe, the books remain chained to their wooden desks.

Zutphen was the mother town of Arnhem, Doetinchem, Harderwijk and others, the place their rights were copied from. Returning here feels like coming back to the beginning of something. Whatever took you away, the IJssel, the Berkel and those old gates are still exactly where you left them.