The P.C. Hooftstraat arose at the end of the 19th century. At the time of the construction of the Vondelpark. Initially the P.C. Hooftstraat a normal residential street, with houses based on designs by the famous architect Pierre Cuypers. Cuypers also designed the Rijksmuseum and Amsterdam Central Station.
In the early days of the P.C. Hooftstraat there were hardly any luxury stores. There were only a few neighborhood stores. In 1876 the street got the name of the historian and poet: Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft. The seventies had already arrived and the call to a luxury shopping street became increasingly louder, partly due to the impoverishment of the Kalverstraat. Many luxury shops departed from the Kalverstraat to the P.C. Hooftstraat. Slowly but surely, the street transformed from ordinary neighborhood street to chic shopping street. Butcheries and bookshops had to clear the field for luxury, international, fashion brands. As a result, the rents increased enormously, with the result that the last self-employed people left the street in the early 1980s.
Nowadays the 300 meter long P.C. Hooftstraat a fashionable shopping street in the Amsterdam district Oud-Zuid. The street is located near famous museums such as the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum and the Stedelijk Museum. Moreover, the street is in the top ten of the most chic shopping streets in the world.
