Paramaribo
— — a Dutch wooden town the tropics softened.
Not only on a wall.
“The capital of Suriname, set on a slow bend of the Suriname River about fifteen kilometres inland from the Atlantic. Whitewashed Dutch colonial houses in tropical hardwood line Onafhankelijkheidsplein and the streets that lead away from it. A synagogue and a mosque share a wall on Keizerstraat. The river runs the colour of strong tea past Fort Zeelandia at the city's edge. from the studio
Paramaribo, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Paramaribo is the capital of Suriname and home to roughly 240,000 people, more than a third of the country's population. The city sits about fifteen kilometres upriver from the Atlantic, on the left bank of the Suriname River, where the Dutch built a fort and laid out the first streets in the second half of the seventeenth century. UNESCO inscribed the historic inner city as a World Heritage site in 2002 for its preserved fusion of European colonial planning and Surinamese tropical building craft. Independence Square, the former governor's residence, and Fort Zeelandia all sit within a short walk.
The signature of Paramaribo is wood. The historic centre's whitewashed buildings are built almost entirely in local tropical hardwoods — bulletwood, greenheart, and wana — set on shallow brick foundations and topped with steep tiled or shingled roofs. The Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, consecrated in 1885 and reopened after a long restoration in 2010, is one of the largest wooden buildings in the Americas. The technique adapted Dutch urban patterns to a humid climate where stone weathers badly but the durable hardwoods of the Surinamese interior last for centuries with simple maintenance.
The historic inner city is compact and walkable, anchored on Onafhankelijkheidsplein in front of the former governor's residence. Fort Zeelandia, the seventeenth-century Dutch fortification on the river, now houses the Surinaams Museum and is open most days for a small admission fee. Travelers usually arrive at Johan Adolf Pengel International Airport, about an hour south of the city by road. The dry seasons run roughly February through April and August through November; the rest of the year brings warm afternoon rains that pass quickly and leave the wooden facades steaming in the late light.