Architecture can capture and project identity. Kings and presidents try to secure their legacy with palaces and museums in prominent places; eminent citizens project their achievements and wealth by building imposing residences; even ordinary citizens instinctively choose dwellings which they think reflect their style and taste. And the same is true of cities, especially capital cities. Amsterdam, like other European capitals, presents itself by commissioning its built environment at various levels and in successive periods, especially its public buildings.

There is a common popular assumption that political identities are singular, fixed items; you have one, and it involves loyalty and allegiance to a particular body or unit, most usually a nation state. If you are Dutch, then your primary loyalty or identification is with the Netherlands, and sharing that identity with something else – another country for example – will weaken or even damage your Dutch identity. Half-measures are signs of weakness: you can only have one identity, and it is the same for everyone. Remember the trouble Princess Maxima got into when she had the cheek to suggest in 2007 that there was no single Dutch national identity? Perhaps the most notorious perceived clash of identities happens when national and European identities collide: many would take the view that the more you identify with Europe, the less strong your national identity becomes.

If that kind of view characterises populist rhetoric, then it is far too simplistic. Our identities always involve loyalties to all sorts of different things, like family, gender, age group, ideology, religion, region, country, continent and much else. In addition those loyalties change over time in themselves and in relation to others, but together they make up a complete, total identity which is the sum of those many different allegiances. Some strands may be more important than others, but identities are invariably multiple.

Here I shall illustrate this by looking at the way three kinds of identity not only coexist, but actually support each other in Amsterdam. Those three forms are ones which might be seen as being especially mutually incompatible: the local identity of the city of Amsterdam, the national identity of the Netherlands, and a European identity. Amsterdam is a particularly good but by no means unique example: a similar exercise could be conducted in London, Lisbon, Vienna, or other capitals.