The Dutch Quarter (Holländisches Viertel) is a tight grid of 134 red-brick gabled houses built in the 1730s and 1740s for Dutch craftsmen invited by Frederick William I to settle in Potsdam. The king admired Dutch urban planning and wanted skilled artisans — bricklayers, carpenters, weavers — so he built them a neighbourhood to feel at home in. The craftsmen largely returned home when the king died, but the houses survived.
Today the four streets of the Dutch Quarter are the most characterful part of Potsdam's old town, filled with cafes, galleries, boutiques, and wine bars occupying the low-ceilinged rooms of the Dutch-style houses. The architecture is genuinely distinctive — crow-stepped gables, narrow facades, and a scale that belongs to Amsterdam more than Brandenburg. It is an easy place to spend an afternoon, ducking in and out of shops and stopping for coffee. The quarter is a ten-minute walk north of the Brandenburg Gate.