Hello! Welcome to this MacBike Harbour and Architecture bike tour. Your first stop on this tour is Muziekgebouw aan het IJ en Bimhuis. Here, at the beginning of Piet Heinkade, you see in the water of the harbor the Muziekgebouw aan het IJ. Mind you: the word IJ is the name for the waters of the Amsterdam harbour. This Muziekgebouw is the new concert hall that offers a programme consisting mainly of modern and world music, but also includes some old music, cabaret, musical education, amateur music and audio art; it is also the new home for the Bimhuis, which is a leading platform for contemporary music, jazz and improvised music. These two 'halls of music' are housed in a fully integrated design. The auditorium of the BIMhuis has a distinct ambiance. It projects from the facade of the Muziekgebouw as a striking black box which is designed by the Danish architect company 3XN and was finished in 2005. The building has a single main entrance which is reached from Piet Heijnkade by a bridge over the water of the former harbour basin. The Bimhuis can be reached from the main entrance via a route through the interior of the Muziekgebouw, but it also has a separate entrance. The Muziekgebouw is 24 metres tall and has five storeys. The facade consists largely of a glass curtain draped around three sides of the building. The building contains a large public foyer that is built around the concert auditorium. The foyer, designed as a covered plaza, is intended as a reception hall and meeting place which remains open the public throughout the day. It also contains several other public functions such as a grand caf&eacute; as well as an area for exhibitions. The glass facade gives visitors a splendid view across the IJ from the foyer. In front of the building, there is an open space which descends in steps from ground level into the water. Your next stop is the passenger terminal.

Muziekgebouw aan het IJ and BIMhuis

East of the Muziekgebouw you find the Passenger Terminal Amsterdam (PTA). It is the city&rsquo;s official port for cruise ships. Occasionally naval vessels arrive here as well. The newly built passenger terminal for cruise ships was one of the first new projects completed in 2000 as part of the regeneration of Oostelijke Handelskade. The terminal is used by shipping companies and their (almost 200.000) passengers for the greater part of the year. Outside the cruising season, it functions as a venue for events, exhibitions, fairs and conferences. The 24 metre tall building is largely clad in glass. The transparency of the building is such that cruise ships moored in the IJ can be seen through the building from Oostelijke Handelskade. Conversely, passengers in the seven thousand square metres terminal hall enjoy a broad view of the city. The building&rsquo;s wavelike shape (provided by London architecture firm HOK) hints at the water of the IJ and gives the building a nautical ambiance. it with a wave-like shape for the nautical look. Since thousands of cruise passengers land here annually for a visit to Amsterdam, the main premiss of the design was that the building should be a clear junction point between the water and dry land. This function will expand in the future to that of a multimodal traffic node, complete with jetties for water buses, car and coach parking facilities, a taxi rank and a stop for the City-tram.

Passenger Terminal

Paddling on you have reached Warehouse De Zwijger. Zwijger is dutch for a person who does not speak.Built in 1933-1934, the refrigerated warehouse de Zwijger formed part of the continuous row of forwarding and cold-storage warehouses along Oostelijke Handelskade, part of Amsterdam&acute;s inner harbour. It was intended for the long-term storage of perishable goods and was built to a design by the architect J. de Bie Leuveling Tjeenk and the structural engineer K. Bakker. The building was designed in accordance with the principles of the Nieuwe Bouwen (Dutch Modernism), as a result of which its structure was clearly visible on the exterior, making it one of the most modern warehouses of its day. The concrete load-bearing structure consists of mushroom columns, which support the building&acute;s cantilevered (third to seventh) storeys. On the blind elevation, on the east side, are the names of the nine cities where the company had offices. In the nineteen seventies and eighties, the dock area was abandoned and the warehouse became redundant. Having lain vacant for many years, the building now has national listed status and has been redeveloped into a multi-use cultural facility. The architectural firm J. van Stigt has transformed de Zwijger into an accessible, largely transparent building, while preserving its closed character. The building&acute;s plinth is set in glass, as a result of which the entrance on the ground floor and the restaurant on the first floor are directly connected to the street and the bridge. In 2000, this bridge, the Jan Schaeferbrug, which connects Piet Heinkade with Java eiland, was built right through the building. Continue the tour by biking underneath the warehouse and cross the Jan Schaeferbrug.

Warehouse De Zwijger

You are on the Jan Schaefer bridge( Jan Schaefer was a city-politician who did much good for Amsterdam). From here you have a nice view of Java island. The Jan Schaeferbrug spans the 200 metres wide IJ-harbour between Oostelijke Handelskade and the western side of Java island. The bridge improves the link between the city centre and KNSM island and Java island. In the final decades of the twentieth century, these islands in the former dockland area Oostelijk Havengebied were transformed into new residential areas. For traffic management reasons, the construction of a bridge in line with Kattenburgerstraat was the obvious choice. However, warehouse de Zwijger was standing near this street. The client decided that the warehouse should not be completely demolished but that the bridge should be built right through the building. Architect Ton Venhoeven says that he conceived this trajectory through the building as a cinematic experience: &lsquo;Between the image seen before passing the warehouse and the image afterwards there is a cinematographic shock, comparable to the effect produced when a film leaps from one scene to another&rsquo;. The bridge is an ambiguous object which fascinates, among other things, because of the interweaving of the connections for pedestrians, cyclists and motor traffic. The design is further enlivened by the asymmetrical cambers beneath and above the bridge deck and by the widely positioned posts on which it stands in the IJ. With a view to occasional shipping traffic, sections of the bridge deck are jointed. Ride further over the bridge and enter Java island!

Jan Schaefer bridge

You have entered Java island which was built in 1991. KNSM island is really the same island, it is just the eastern part of it. Sjoerd Soeters masterminded "the Java island urban development project". He was inspired by the canals of Amsterdam that are lined by lots of different ans relatively narrow houses that combine to form an amazing picture. Soeters commissioned several architect to design one or more buildings of roughly the same size. And they did a great job. Color, height, layout, size, price: everything is different. The medium-sized housing blocks are criss-crossed by specially constructed canals, featuring nine playful little bridges created by artistic partners Guy Rombouts and Monika Droste. The canal-side houses were designed by nineteen promising architects, including the like of Ren&eacute; van Zuuk and Bjarne Mastenbroek. Although each of the houses are completely different, they more or less mirror the ones on the opposite side. The only common architectural features are their width (4.5 metres) and height (4 to 5 levels). The first island block, just after the connecting point between KNSM-eiland and Java-eiland, is half open and provides a view over the IJ. A park has been created here, while the other four blocks have an inner garden courtyard. In order to reinforce the connection between the gardens, the theme 'Seasons' has been chosen. Anyone who follows the route through the gardens from east to west, passes through the seasons spring, summer, autumn and winter, in that order. The seasons are expressed in the different plantings, colours, fragrances and of course in the flowering season. The gardens have names that refer to the island of Java in the former Dutch East Indies, the destination of the Dutch steamship company that used to have its headquarters here. From east to west: Bogor garden, Kraton garden, Taman Sapi garden, Imogiri garden, Tosari garden. In present-day Indonesia, Tosari is a cool nature reserve, situated at a high altitude, at the foot of a volcano. The trees in this Amsterdam winter garden are in full bloom with their white blossom in the middle of winter. The facade designs of three of the seven buildings Sjoerd Soeters designed for Java island are based on the same basic design, the defining feature of which is the use of bright areas of color. Because of their vivid colours, incorporated in vertical strips of black brick, these buildings function as landmarks. With their balconies, extensions and gardens, the south-facing facades on the inner courts are more vibrant and more open than the closed facades on the north side. One of the buildings on the north quay is distinguished by four high gateways in the lower two levels. The gateways afford a view of the IJ from the inner garden, so that contact with the water is preserved. Because the building on the other side of the inner garden also has gateways, there is a view from one side of the island &ndash; over the inner court &ndash; to the water on the other side of the island. The bicycle path winds its way across the length of Java island through protected inner gardens behind the housing blocks and ends at azart-square next to KNSM island.

Java island and KNSM island

From Java island you have arrived on KNSM island which was designed by Jo Coenen and build in 1989. Horizontal lines dominate the captivating picture, with broad roads in between the colossal buildings harmonising with the grand scale of the harbour. At the end of Surinamekade you will see the round building named Emerald Empire. In addition to the master plan for KNSM-eiland, Jo Coenen also designed this circular housing complex and was completed in 1996, is literally the crowning feature of KNSM-eiland. Characteristic of the master plan is the enclosed yet open character of the island. This principle is expressed in the Emerald Empire; the building's public inner courtyard provides shelter, while the panoramic view of the IJ provides openness. For Coenen, it was important that the island's central axis, KNSM-laan, should not terminate in a nondescript roundabout, but rather in a landmark as seen from KNSM-laan. The eight-storey building contains 206 three-room apartments and 18 four-room apartments. These 18 spacious dwellings are situated on the northeast side of the building and, with their oriels, which provide a spectacular view over the IJ, give rise to an asymmetrical exterior. The surrounding waterside villas, also designed by Coenen, were completed a year later. Bike around the Emerald Empire and follow the KNSM-Laan. On the left side there stands another round building: the housing complex at Barcelonaplein. This building on KNSM-laan is one of the two 'superblocks' built on the south side of KNSM-eiland in accordance with the principles of Jo Coenen's master plan. The social housing block by Bruno Albert is in neo-classical style and contrasts sharply with the other superblock a little further, Piraeus. Two semi-circles tower two storeys above the rest of the building and, together with Barcelonaplein, form the centre of the structure. This circular square is named after the KNSM service between Amsterdam and the Catalan capital. The eye-catcher is the huge ornamental railings, designed by the artist Narcisse Tordoir, on the south side of the square. The railings follow the building's rounded form and consist of large, decorated squares. Whereas only red brick has been used on the building's exterior, alternating bands of white and red brick have been employed for the dwellings in Barcelonaplein. A little further down the road also on the left, you will see housing block Piraeus completed in 1994, recognizable from afar due to its sloping roof, measures 170 by 57 meters. It comprises 330 apartments, commercial spaces, an underground parking garage and two enclosed public spaces. It is wrapped around a 19th century office building, which now contains apartments. The south side of Piraeus is 4 stories high, the north 8. The block counts 150 different types of apartments, 95 % of which are social housing. All facades are different in rhythm, details and openings. Now cross the Verbindingsdam (dutch for "connection dam") on your left en turn right on the other side and visit The IJ tower and shopping centre Brazili&euml;.&nbsp;

KNSM island

If you have turned right after you crossed the "verbindingsdam" bridge, you will see the IJ tower on your right. The twenty-storey tower contains apartments and a supermarket on the ground floor. The slab base of the building is clad with dark grey concrete brick, the tower is faced with white cement slabs. The facade is pierced here and there by openings in the form of slits, squares and T-squares. These have a cladding of reddish brown slabs. Because of these openings, each elevation and the floor plan of each storey are different. As a result, there is a great diversity of dwelling types, ranging from small studios to large duplex apartments with roof terraces. The openings also give the tower a sculptural character and, together with the strips of fenestration, which are staggered in relation to each other, the exterior its distinctive appearance. The tower stands on a base which contains a car parking level, a multifunctional space and a supermarket. The architect also designed the adjacent Brazili&euml; shopping centre, making use of the iron framework and trussed roof of a cotton and cacao warehouse built in 1915. The departure point was to design a building which was as open as possible. This is why there are side passages connecting Oostelijke Handelskade with the IJ-harbour. You may want to continue and see The Lloyd Hotel &amp; Paviljoen Lloydplein.

IJ tower and Brazilië shopping centre

Ride along, keeping the Brazili&euml; shopping centre at your right side and stop in front of the Lloyd hotel. This hotel was designed by Evert Breman and was put to use in 1921 as a hotel for emigrants awaiting embarkation. This was the terminal where passengers boarded ships of the Royal Dutch Lloyd line sailing to South and Central America. The hotel then functioned as a prison from 1940 to 1989, after which it was rented as studio space to artists until 1999. The transformation of Amsterdam&rsquo;s Eastern Docks area into an archipelago of residential islands also had implications for the Lloyd building. The scheme to create a hotel and a &lsquo;cultural embassy&rsquo; on the site was the winner of a competition held by the city in 1999. To provide a sufficient number of rooms, floors accessed by new staircases were inserted in the side wings. Cells and barred windows which had been added for prison purposes were removed. New functional elements such as bathrooms and dining rooms were detailed in collaboration with a number of designers. Some of the rooms were designed by MVRDV and Bureau Lakenvelder, and others by the artist Joep van Lieshout. Work by the contemporary designers Christoph Seyferth, Ineke Hans, Jurgen Bey and Richard Hutten is visible in the rooms and public spaces, as are historic contributions by K.P.C. De Bazel and Gerrit Rietveld. Cross the road and there you see the Paviljoen Lloydplein. This pavilion is situated on the Lloydplein, a square along the IJ-harbour. It is a freestanding object, framed on three sides by several large complexes. It has spacious views towards the harbour on the north side. The building has been designed as two interwoven volumes: on the ground floor, the tapasrestaurant Puerto Pata Negra, and on the first floor an office space. The two patios on the first floor and the stairwell diversify the volume and refine the shape. The total complex of dark-stained stone with frames of zinc forms a distinct sculpture on the square. Your next sight is The Wale.

Lloyd Hotel & Paviljoen Lloydplein

Turn around and go back, again follow the Brazilian shopping centre (now on your left side) till you get to the "Verbindingsdam" at your left.Here, a bit to the right, you see &lsquo;The Whale&rsquo;, designed by the architect Frits van Dongen of the architectural office Architecten.cie. The sloping roofline and the use of zinc fa&ccedil;ade panels, as well as the location on an island, does indeed arouse associations with a fish, even if a whale does not have scales. The internal programme comprised 214 apartments, with two thirds social housing, sufficient work space and an underground parking facility the size of a football pitch. Van Dongen&rsquo;s brief was, with a limited budget, to house this extensive programme in a large block and, at the same time, design a building that &lsquo;worked&rsquo; at street level. In order to provide the lowermost storey with direct sunlight, the building was raised. As a result, the inner garden courtyard is visible from street level, and so functions as a (semi-) public space. With its striking roofline, The Whale is very much a landmark. The course of the sun determined the building&rsquo;s form, so that the sun&rsquo;s highest position towards sunset is level with the building&rsquo;s roofline. The Whale has received international acclaim, but in an interview Frits van Dongen has said that he regarded the words of a young girl as the greatest compliment: she found the building small but also very large; alluding to the scale of The whale as a landmark on Borneo-Sporenburg and the view at street level.

The Whale

The best things in life are Hoop, Liefde en Fortuin ( Dutch for: Hope, Love and Fortune). This is the name for the next building.
De Rietlanden, this neighbourhood that links the Eastern Docks redevelopment zone to the city centre, contains this striking building with its ascending roofline and forward-leaning facade. The building is known as Hoop, Liefde en Fortuin a.k.a Hope, Love and Fortune. The building includes apartments for both the social and the owner-occupied sectors. These are shielded on the north side by a large, sloping screen of prefabricated marble components, which rises in steps above a black plinth. The screen disguises the varying formats of the dwellings. The south facade, dominated by a pattern of balconies, follows the sloping roofline in a similar way to that on the north. The architect Rudy Uytenhaak collaborated with the artist Willem Oorebeek on this design. Oorebeek applied a pattern of black dots using 90,000 black tiles on the north facade. For the south face of the building, he designed glass balcony parapets with footprints which symbolize the life that goes on behind the facade.

Hoop, Liefde en Fortuin

Return to the main street from which you entered Borneo-island and go south again. After you have crossed the water you'll see the large whitish building on your left by the water.The solid concrete building on Zeeburgerkade served as King Willem I cacao warehouse until 1989 when the Institute for Social History moved in. Because of its solid construction, the building was ideally suited to house the institute's heavy archives. In order to make the building attractive for staff and visitors, the closed block was opened up, to a design by the architectural office Atelier PRO, by removing wall and fa&ccedil;ade sections. On entering the building on the south side, which has deliberately been kept closed, the atrium becomes increasingly spacious and leads to a huge window with a view of Entrepothaven. Situated on this side are, among other things, the library, restaurant and offices. On the first floor, an extension for the reading room has been built on the cantilevered former loading platform. The top two storeys, which is where the repository is located, have been left largely intact. In 2001, the Press Museum, designed by Henk van der Leeden, formerly architect at Atelier PRO, was opened in the same building. The museum was to be an open, public-oriented centre with its own identity. Van der Leeden designed a rounded glazed front on the buildings huge rear elevation, as a result of which the Press Museum, as it were, 'seeks to break out of the introverted cocoa warehouse.'Paddling alongside the press museum, further down Zeeburgerkade, you will get to the warehouses Maandag tot en met Zondag&rdquo; (Dutch for Monday till Sunday).

Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis

These 300-metre long bonded warehouses Maandag tot en met Zondag (Monday to Friday: built in 1900, renovated 1988-1991) on the Cruquiusweg were converted into 390 private sector houses, in some cases rather rigorously.Still further, Zeeburgerkade makes a right-turn and leads to a roundabout. Go straight forward onto van Lohuizenlaan. At the end of it take a left-turn onto Zeeburgerdijk. Go further till you get to Flevopark.

Maandag tot en met Zondag warehouse

You have just entered the Flevopark. Large groups of contributors within the Jewish Community first idealized the park as a large Jewish Cemetery in 1908 and were led by Jac P. Thijsse, a well-known naturalist. Construction on the site began in 1928 and was opened for the first time in 1931. Later, in 1956, Amsterdam purchased the park from the Jewish community and it was opened to the public. Felvopark is now a large, green park with great places to jog, hang out and relax. If you like picnicking, come on a sunny day and have save a spot near one of the beautiful lakes. When you&rsquo;re finished, you can enjoy the large outdoor swimming pool, with a smaller shallow pool for the kids. The trees around this park are calming as the breeze slowly moves through them during the spring and autumn seasons, making this park a great pace to take a quiet vacation away from loud beaches and busy cities. Often cited as one of the best places to swim in Eastern Amsterdam, Flevopark is a beautiful addition to the &lsquo;Greenest City in Europe&rsquo;.

Flevopark

In Flevopark a Jewish Cemetery is situated.Jewish belief in life after death which makes the cemeteries a very important place because of respect due to people who are gone from this life. The most important Jewish cemetery is the one see on your right. Founded in 1714 and here are 200,000 people buried which makes it the largest in the Netherlands. Unfortunately it was long neglected &mdash; and far off the tourist track. Zeeburg cemetery was above all intended for poor Jews who couldn&rsquo;t afford the cost of a grave. It was also the place where people were buried when they died on a Friday or Jewish festival, or the day before one of these. The funeral procession to the cemetery at Muiderberg would be with a horse and cart and then by barge. This was so time-consuming it couldn&rsquo;t take place on high days and holidays. But Zeeburg lay much nearer the city. The restoration effort began in the autumn of 2011, with the establishment of the Stichting Eerherstel Joodse Begraafplaats Zeeburg (Rehabilitation Foundation for Jewish Cemetery Zeeburg). On Sunday, October 30, 2011, Amsterdam&rsquo; began a collaborative program for Moroccan and Jewish youth to clean this large and neglected cemetery. On six Sundays, as many as 100 young people have helped to improve the condition of the cemetery.

Jewish Cemetery

Leave the park and ride west on Flevoweg, later on Insulindeweg till you will take a left onto Sumatrastraat. The Ambon-square, where you'll find the Gerardus Majella church, lies on your left.&nbsp;On the Ambonplein you see The Gerardus Majellakerk which is a is a former Roman Catholic church. The church was built in 1925 to a design by the architect Jan Stuyt and was the centre of a Catholic complex that included housing, a convent and two schools. Like many of the churches Stuyt designed, the Gerardus Majellakerk was inspired by the Byzantine churches he visited during a trip to the Middle East in 1903, in particular the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. The main reference to Byzantine architecture is the large twelve-sided crossing tower. A west tower formed part of the original design but was never built In the 1930s, problems began to arise regarding the building&rsquo;s upkeep and maintenance. The fact that the Indische Buurt was not an affluent neighbourhood contributed to the church&rsquo;s financial difficulties. Increasing secularization in the 1960s and urban renewal, which resulted in a change in the makeup of the local population, added to the maintenance problems. Eventually, in 1992, the church was declared redundant and was handed over to Stadsherstel Amsterdam. The architect Andr&eacute; van Stigt restored the building and created spaces that could be rented out to various organizations. From 1994 to 2011, the building housed the Clara Wichmann Institute and Aletta, among others. In 2012, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra moved into the building.

The Gerardus Majellachurch

Paddle on and visit the Berlage blocks. Return to Sumatrastraat, take a right-turn onto Insulindeweg and turn left onto Molukkenstraat.On the corner of Molukkenstraat and Baliestraat you will see three blocks of worker&rsquo;s housing. The so-called &lsquo;Berlage blocks&rsquo; form the southern boundary of Javaplein. They were among the first dwellings built for Amsterdam&rsquo;s poorest inhabitants after the passing of the Housing Act in 1902. The entire complex, two freestanding blocks and a built-on block, contains 169 workers&rsquo; dwellings. The floor plan is based on the British &lsquo;model cottage&rsquo;. By adding two side streets, Benkoelenstraat and Lankatstraat, Berlage departed from the original brief. The division of the elongated block into three sections and the setting back of the corners enables the dwellings to receive more sunlight. It also produces more public space. Berlage took the idea of a communal garden from J. van der Pek. The blocks share their austere red brick appearance with other complexes of De Arbeiderswoning. Berlage believed this architecture to be suitable for the working class. The last large-scale renovation was in 1969-1971. The dwellings were given a real kitchen and a shower. The front doors were renewed and a lower frontage of a synthetic material was added. In 1999, local residents responded to a proposal by Zeeburg district council to demolish the blocks by setting up the action group &lsquo;Save the Berlage blocks&rsquo;. The protest and the efforts of well-known architects resulted in a &lsquo;listed building status&rsquo; for the blocks.

Berlage blocks

If, from Java-square, you would ride into Borneostraat 300 metres, you could find the Derde Technische School (Dutch for Third Technical School) on your right hand side.This technical school, the &lsquo;Derde Technische School van de Maatschappij voor den Werkenden Stand&rsquo;, opened in Timorplein in 1912.The building was designed by the architects at the city&rsquo;s public works department, who probably took their inspiration from the work of H.P. Berlage and Jos Cuypers. The school&rsquo;s ground plan measured 74 by 50 metres. Distributed over four storeys were separate classrooms for plasterers, bricklayers, stonemasons, blacksmiths, lathe operators, carpenters etc. Timorplein is situated in the Indische Buurt. This working-class neighbourhood was built at great speed between 1900 and 1930 in order to house the huge influx of dock workers in Amsterdam. Construction was so hasty that insufficient time was allowed for the raised polder ground to settle. As a consequence, subsidence occurred and as early as 1936 a number of dwellings had to be demolished. When in the 1960s the adjacent dock area Oostelijk Havengebied became redundant, the Indische Buurt was left isolated between the deserted docks and the railway line. It fell into decline and was even on Minister Vogelaar&rsquo;s list of deprived areas. In order to prevent further decline, the city council launched a large-scale regeneration programme in the area. Many dwellings were renovated and new facilities were provided for residents. As part of this urban regeneration programme, the almost one hundred year old, vacant school building was given a new use. It now houses a Stayokay hotel, the headquarters of this hotel chain, Studio K, a cultural centre with a cinema, stage, a bar/restaurant run by students and IIRE, an international education centre.

Third Technical School

In the nineteenth-century district &lsquo;Indische buurt&rsquo;, where in the coming years many dwellings are to be radically improved and renovated, Atelier Zeinstra van der Pol has realized replacement new-build in four different locations. The new-build was built in two phases, but forms a whole architecturally. The second phase, &lsquo;Borneodriehoek&rsquo;, comprises a building with a triangular floor plan and forms the termination of a block between Borneostraat and Delistraat and the two head-end buildings on Celebesstraat, which are interconnected by means of an underground parking garage. The blocks, with dwellings in the owner-occupied and rental sector, contain a diverse array of apartments, maisonettes, penthouses, studio dwellings and dwellings for the mentally handicapped. Some are accessed via galleries on the inside of the block, while others are directly accessible from the street. Because of the location on a railway line, sound-damping facilities were necessary and these determined the design. The elevations are characterized by a grid of storey-high surfaces of glass and brick and vertical steel grilles. Steel U sections, behind which are, among other things, the sound-damping facilities, mark the storey floors. The many voids enhance the daylighting and the spatiality of the dwellings. A striking characteristic of the project is its transparency and the supple way in which, with modern devices, it fits in with the character and articulation of the neighbouring buildings.

Borneo Triangle

Turn left into the Pontanussstraat and stop at the first crossing on your right. You see that narrow, steep stairway? Precisely on the corner? That connects and, at the same time, distinguishes the closed section on the main road from the more open part containing experimental dwellings along the less busy street. The convergence of a busy thoroughfare and a quiet residential street at a sharp corner was the point of departure of Van der Pol&rsquo;s design for a housing block. These dwellings have an open floor plan, made possible by spanning a beam on columns, in between which the residents can have partitions inserted. All the rooms are accessible from the centrally situated hall via sliding doors. The image of the glass fa&ccedil;ade, staggered balconies and the curtain of metal rods and hoisting beams on this side forms a sharp contrast with the dark, rust-coloured plating material and the simple window pattern of the section along the thoroughfare.

The Houses on Pontanusstraat

Look to the other side of the water, there you will see six towers. Standing on the site of a former army barracks, this housing scheme proceeds from a plan by Atelier PRO featuring a semi-open relationship with the water. A major component of the plan is six residential towers partly freestanding and partly assimilated in a perimeter block. The practice invited the above six foreign architects to provide the architecture for a tower apiece. These designs were then further fleshed out by Atelier pro and considerably toned down in places. The result has a thoroughly un-Dutch gaiety, even though all that is left of the invited architects' original intentions is often little more than the two dimensions of a facade.

Six residential towers Alexanderkade

If you continue going you will get to Tropenpunt.Opposite of the largest anthropological museum, The Tropenmuseum, a new apartment building was set up, &lsquo;De Tropenpunt.&rsquo; The unusual shape of the site has given rise to unusual floor plans, particularly at the tip of the building, where the dwellings benefit from an abundance of light. The combination of dark natural stone slabs, horizontal strips of fenestration and aluminium-coloured varnished steel plates, gives rise to a subtle light relief. In addition, on the side of the existing housing blocks, the historic vertical rhythm has been resumed and towards the tip the articulation gradually acquires a horizontal character. Moreover, because the windows are increasingly tall in that direction, the dramatic effect of the tip is accentuated. The floors at the corner slightly overlap each other. It consists out of twelve luxurious apartments, above an exposition space, bar and 14 mechanically organized indoor parking lots. Its triangular location forms the new end of a 19th century building block.

Tropenpunt

Here you can find 53 dwellings in three residential blocks in Dapperbuurt (Dutch for Dapper-neighbourhood).This housing scheme comprises three blocks situated close together in Dapperbuurt. One of Van Heeswijk&rsquo;s aims was to show that the technical level of the fa&ccedil;ade as it seems to be the norm in office construction is also realizable in housing. He therefore employed the mode of construction, building components, detailing, materials and building method used in commercial and industrial buildings. Characteristics of Amsterdam&rsquo;s architecture have also been incorporated. This architecture is characterized by the closed block, the distinction between ground floor and upper storeys and between fa&ccedil;ades and side walls, a more or less flat fa&ccedil;ade and a strong vertical articulation which is usually based on the width of the plots. Although each of the three blocks has its own character, they present a uniform appearance. For example, the various dwelling types lie behind taut fa&ccedil;ades and the block sections are linked by means of transparent glass lifts and stairwells. A characteristic element is the round balcony with perforated steel. The grey fa&ccedil;ades clad with aluminium are decorated with colourful signs designed by R. Oxenaar and texts by the Dutch writers J.C. Bloem and Nescio.

Three residential blocks

An important building in the city is The Royal Tropical Institute. Turn around to see het Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen ( Dutch for: the Royal Tropical Institute). Het Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen is a successor to the Koloniaal Museum in Haarlem of 1871. Because of a chronic lack of space, in 1900 that museum began to draw up plans to relocate to a new building in Amsterdam. In addition to its museum function, it was also to be a research institute, with a library, a large hall and teaching rooms. In 1910, the committee members of the society Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut began to raise funds from private individuals, institutions, companies, central government and the city council. The city council promised a site on the former cemetery Oosterbegraafplaats on Mauritskade, on the edge of Oosterpark, which had been laid out in 1894 by L.A. Springer. In 1916, the park was remodelled by Springer. J.J. van Nieukerken was selected from three other architects for the commission. When Nieukerken died in 1913, his son, M.A. van Nieukerken took over the project. Despite complaints by the amenities inspectorate and fellow designers about the outmoded style and the chaotic ground plan, in 1915 construction work began. The project took more than ten years to complete because of various setbacks, such as a devastating storm and a shortage of building materials during the First World War. The reinforced concrete structure with wooden roofs was built on a site 44,000 square metres in size. The brick facades were decorated with granite, marble, wall paintings and sculptures in French lime sandstone. For the sculptural programme, a special Symbolism Committee was set up, which selected subjects from national and colonial history, science and trade and sought suitable artists to execute this work. After the independence of Indonesia in 1950, the Koloniaal Instituut was renamed the Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (KIT). In the periods 1968-1978 and 1989-1990, the complex of buildings was restored, reorganized and extended. Now cross the bridge on your right to go to the Muiderpoort.

The Royal Tropical Institute

You are now at the only remaining example of old town gates dating back to the 17th/18th century, the Muiderpoort. Muiderpoort was built in the style of Louie XVI and serves as perhaps the first example of 18th century urban architecture. 

Muiderpoort

With your back turned towards the 6 little windows on the side of Muiderpoort, you look into Sarphatistraat ( Dr. Sarphati is a legend in Amsterdam history of city-politicians) There is situated your next point of interest: the Office Building Het Oosten.
The former Rijksmagazijn van Geneesmiddelen (state depository for medicines) in Sarphatistraat has been restored and extended to a design by the American architect Steven Holl and is now in use as the headquarters of the housing corporation Het Oosten. In the two-storey U-shaped building, the original columns, wooden trusses, cast-iron staircases and vaulted ceilings have been preserved. White walls with large openings dominate the interior. On the side of Singelgracht, a pavilion has been added to the complex. It is used as a conference room and staff restaurant. The interior consists of an almost completely open space in which two different-sized balconies jut into the space. The white walls have large window openings. Outside, a façade of perforated copper plate with large openings has been placed in front of the façade proper. Not all of these openings coincide with those in the inner wall. Inside, a second perforated wall has been placed in front of the façade, which extends in front of the windows in places. In accordance with the concept ‘Patterns in a chromatic field’, areas of bright colour have been applied to the white walls inside as well as outside. The perforations and reflections give rise to a spatial play of colours. The pavilion seems to change colour as you walk past it due to the apparent movement of the coloured areas behind the copper screen.

Office Building Het Oosten

Turn to the left and enter the sidestreet of Sarphatistreet, than cross the busy Mauritskade and after a hundred meters you see the Arena Hotel on your left.&nbsp;
From orphanage to a four star hotel The St. Elisabeth Gesticht was built in 1890 as a Roman Catholic orphanage and after the Second World War it functioned temporarily as a home for the elderly. In 1982, the city council bought the building with the aim of turning it into a &lsquo;Sleep-in&rsquo;, in order to meet the need for budget accommodation in the city. It was privatized in 1990 and converted into a three-star hotel. The building was designed by the architect A.C. Bleijs, who also designed the church St. Nicholaaskerk opposite Amsterdam&rsquo;s Central Station. The building comprises four wings situated around an inner court and is executed in the neo-Renaissance style, which was popular in the Netherlands around 1900. The facades consist of a plinth of rough blocks of natural stone, above which is brownish-red brick, interspersed with stone corner pilasters, corbels and copestones, cornices, string courses and other ornamentation. A distinctive feature is the prefatory building on Mauritskade, on either side of which a richly ornamented and raised neck-gableterminates the projecting building sections, which originally housed the trustees&rsquo; rooms. In the late nineties, Hotel Arena was refurbished by IDing Design and the designer Ronald Hooft. The renovation programme was completed in 2003 and the Arena is now a luxury 4-star hotel. Many of the original elements in the interior have been preserved; for example, the balustrades with turned balusters, the cast-iron columns and the richly ornamented mouldings in the stairwell. Modern hotel rooms and Dutch Design hotel suites have replaced the old dormitories. The hotel has a fashionable restaurant, several boardrooms, and a trendy club.&nbsp;
Find your way back into Sarphatistraat, just the way you came and find the State Academy of Fine Arts on your right side. It is your next stop.

Arena hotel

The new Rijksacademie van Beeldende Kunsten (Academy of Fine Arts) is housed in Amsterdam&rsquo;s former 1865 cavalry barracks and stables. At the time, these barracks had the longest facade (300 metres) in Europe. It was later restored and renovated into public housing for rent (1990).&nbsp;
 Two new buildings have been erected in the inner courtyard: a central building with the main entrance, exhibition space and offices, and next to this a tower containing a library and media information centre. The new building development is linked to the first floor of the barracks by four transparent elevated walkways. The former barracks and stables have been converted into ateliers: large ones are situated on the ground floor, individual studios on the floor above. The new additions display Van Velsen&rsquo;s customary architectural complexity, yet have brick cladding so as not to stand out too much from the existing building. On the south side, the barracks have been punctured by one of the elevated walkways. This forms the entrance to the new canteen facing the water.
Paddle along down Sarphatistraat and over the crossing. You see the Zoo on your left-side. After about 300 metres after the crossing you must cross the street and hop over a bridge to find building Aquartis on your righthand side.&nbsp;
&nbsp;

State Academy of Fine Arts

Aquartis was built on the site of the coal store and boiler house of a former municipal electricity generating station, now Museum Energetica. The original building, designed by a pupil of H.P. Berlage, was completely demolished apart from a few supporting columns and arches. These were integrated into the plinth of the new design. The architecture of the new building refers to the industrial history of the location. The long glazed facade, framed by margins of stone, impresses by its scale. The building has a tall middle section of eleven storeys flanked by two wings each of seven storeys high. The storeys narrows upwards by steps of several metres, yielding a distinctive profile which is recognizable from afar. The front facade of each apartment consists of a wooden frame in which the glass doors can fold away entirely, so opening the interior wholly to sunlight and the vista of the African Savannah of Artis Zoo. The building incorporates 110 apartments, including the studio/workshop units on the ground floor and eight luxury penthouses (each 250 m2 floor area) on top. A partly underground parking garage is located behind the building.

Aquartis

Further on, on your right side in the same street lies the row of 84 monumental warehouses. 
These warehouses were built between 1708 and 1829, converted into a social housing complex, as part of the city’s urban regeneration. The dilapidated dock was at that time owned by the council and had been designated a national monument. The redevelopment involved differentiated use of the existing volume, partial demolition and new-build. In consultation with the national monuments department, characteristic features were used and enhanced wherever possible, but with substantial modifications to meet new programmatic requirements. By making use of existing grant schemes, a housing act monument was created whose residential quality and rental level are comparable to new-build. The first storey of the deep block houses parking spaces and storage facilities, the second storey houses commercial spaces. With a view to light penetration, the heart of the building has been removed on the residential storeys above, giving rise to semi-public inner courts. The dwellings on the first storey have small private areas, which are separated from the inner courts by masonry flower tubs. The dwellings on the second and third storey have balconies.

The old Entrepotdok

The depot of the Netherlands Maritime Museum is sited in the high-security naval grounds behind a wall. Ninety metres long, the building is dominated by three 18 metre tall humps giving it a distinctive form that rises above the wall. Precious museum pieces are stored and restoration work takes place in the depot of the Dutch Maritime Museum. For both functions, strict climatic requirements have to be met. For this reason, the building is largely closed and introverted, in accordance with the &lsquo;box-in-box&rsquo; principle. The entire storage space and a number of workshops are housed in a two-storey concrete box. A steel box which surrounds this contains all the servicing installations with their pipes and cables. Because the depot is not accessible to the public, a location within the walls of the highly secure naval base next to the museum could be used. The 90-metre-long building is clad entirely with titanium, a durable material which causes the building&rsquo;s appearance to change with the changing light and weather conditions.

The Depot Scheepvaartmuseum

The depot is situated on military grounds and the whole area has been closed to the public for a long time. Recently, the Navy has started to return the site to the city of Amsterdam and it is being made accessible piece by piece. A hotel/caf&eacute;/restaurant has been opened recently The adjoining building is Het Scheepvaartmuseum.The historic Dutch Republic had five navy sections. Together they were responsible for the defending the republic territory threats by sea and for protecting the extensive merchant fleet. For a long time, the Admiralty of Amsterdam kept the goods necessary for the performance of their task shipbuilding materials, cannons and gunpowder in warehouses on the islands of Rapenburg, Valkenburg and Uilenburg. These artificial islands, which were reclaimed around 1600, are now part of the eastern inner city of Amsterdam. The Admiralty of Amsterdam commissioned the city architect Dani&euml;l Stalpert (1615-1676) to design a large national maritime warehouse (s'Lands Zeemagazijn), which they used from 1656 to store all their materials.The square building has a central courtyard and is surrounded on all sides by water, which originally made it possible to load and unload cargoes. Like the Palace on Dam Square, it was designed in the Dutch classicist style. The style is sparse and restrained, but the architectural effect is impressive.In 1740 a central ressault was added to all four faces of the warehouse. These protruding parts helped to stabilize the facades. Each ressault was crowned with a pediment with sculptural relief, and these remained the only purely decorative features of the building. The doorways through which the supplies were hoisted are still visible in the facades. During a renovation that the building underwent after a fire in 1791, the brick walls were plastered with a layer that gives the appearance of a building in large sandstone blocks.After the abolition of the Admiralty in 1795, the building continued to serve as a warehouse for the National Navy. Since 1973, however, it has been home to the Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum (Dutch Maritime Museum). After years of renovation and alterations by DOK Architects, the building will be reopened in 2011.Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

The Scheepvaartmuseum

Over the bridge, around the turn lies your next stop on this tour: Arcam.The Amsterdam Centre for Architecture or ARCAM launched its activities in 1986. In 2003 the exhibition space on Waterlooplein made way for a new modern pavilion whose succinct folded form more than makes up for its size among its hefty neighbours. Evolving out of studies into form, its roof and wall planes combine as a single surface of Kalzip, an aluminium cladding system, with glass for the areas left open. Inside, all spaces cluster around a central core and are stitched together by voids. It contains three storeys, interconnected by voids. The offices are situated on the top storey. On street level are the exhibition space and information desk, and on water level is a space for small-scale events and group receptions.On the waterside, the building is cut open to reveal its interior behind a large glass fa&ccedil;ade.

Arcam

At the end of the pier lies the NEMO museum.
It is the Museum for technology and is also a Centre for the promotion of science and technology. The nemo science centre stands at the head of the IJ tunnel, in the heart of Oosterdok, as part of the development of the IJ waterfront in the former dockland area Oostelijk Havengebied. The building’s form has been determined in a number of respects by the location. This point is visible from a considerable distance and from several directions, so that a striking building was called for. In addition, the design had to be realized within the possibilities offered by the tunnel pier. Piano has created a theatrical counter-form and where the traffic enters the tunnel he made an ascending roof, which functions as an urban square with a view over the city and the IJ. In the interior, too, there is an ascending line. Open, wide interconnecting stairs lead visitors from floor to floor to the highest point in the building. Because of its form and position, the building is a landmark in the city. Its curved volume is clad with oxidized copper plates which, with their green colour, in large measure determine the exterior of the building. The ground floor is almost entirely faced with glass so that the copper volume above appears to be silhouetted against an imaginary waterline. In order to create a connection with the city, the walls on this side are clad with red brick.

The Nemo museum

When you leave the pier and go back onto Prins Hendrikkade, you find het Scheepvaarthuis, 200 metres towards the Central trainstation on your left.
The Scheepvaarthuis – an office building, originally for six shipping companies – is built on the site where, in 1595, the first Dutch East Indies voyage began. The prestigious Gesamtkunstwerk is an early example of the Amsterdam School. The building is supported by a concrete frame but owes its power of expression to the expressive brick façade. Van der Mey collaborated on the building with colleagues such as De Klerk, Kramer and the Van Gendt brothers, and with a number of artists including Hildo Krop. Numerous symbols, executed in expensive terracotta, granite, exotic hardwood and marble, refer, both inside and out, to shipping. In the interior, the hall and the staircase in particular are noteworthy. Since 2007 the building has been renovated and transformed into a luxurious hotel.

Scheepvaarthuis

This bicycle tour takes you through the well-known eastern labour area (Oostenlijk Havengebied) and nearby eastern neighbourhoods of Amsterdam featuring lots of interesting modern architecture.&nbsp;

Amsterdam

Bicycle Tour: Old Harbour & Modern Architecture

Overview:

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