The Dutch, especially Amsterdammers, shy away from publicly expressing a common appreciation for something or someone, let alone expressing it in a monument. "We can only observe that the consequences are sad for our cityscape. For monuments are the necessary superfluity without which the cityscape does not come alive. "Monuments could enliven new residential neighborhoods.A list of architectural monuments creates only an open-air museum. Monuments cannot be "invented," but the people must want them. Notes: the article is followed by "Report of a voyage of discovery," written by H.B. Fortuin, on the hidden statues of Amsterdam