The Baroque Dutch Quarter, a group of red-brick, gabled houses, was built from 1735-1742 to attract much-needed craftsmen from Holland. The Dutch were recognized as experts in building on swamps, and that's what much of Potsdam was at the time.

The Dutch also provided skills as cabinet-makers, goldsmiths and masons. Built in Dutch tongue-and-groove, half-timber construction style, the houses fill a four-block district once derelict and at risk of being torn down, but now filled with courtyard restaurants, cafés and pubs.

The Jan Bouman Museum at Mittelstrasse 9 gives visitors an excellent sense of what the houses looked like both before and after restoration.