Update: Amsterdam

Update: Amsterdam

AMSTERDAM (NL) - The wind and the water are still there, but the trading vessels have given way to cruise ships, and the storage and trans-shipment of goods to culture, offices and housing. The transformation of the Oostelijke Handelskade, originally masterplanned in 1997, is nearing completion. The motivating force behind the plan is the desire to reconnect the historical centre to the waters that gave it birth, by lining the IJ inlet with a dense, mixed-use ribbon of buildings designed by an equally mixed company of chiefly Dutch architects. The quayside was divided up into several sub-projects and developed in stages.

Concert hall and hotel

One end of the quay has acquired a landmark-quality building in the Muziekgebouw (concert hall) by 3xNielsen. It is designed as a transparent, covered public plaza above which two auditoriums float freely in space. The tiered foyer carries over into a waterfront terrace that functions as an urban beach in summer. This podium becomes the base of the neighbouring Mövenpick hotel, the passenger terminal and the IJ tower, which together furnish the area with a modest skyline. The 65- metre-high hotel, which backs onto the Muziekgebouw and is due to be completed by the end of this year, was designed by Amsterdam architects Claus en Kaan. The striped facade is composed of strips of glazing and bands of stone in various shades of grey which ensure that the building looks precisely what it is, a repetition of identical floors of hotel rooms.

New York firm HOK, who designed the cruise passenger terminal in the shape of a transparent wave, also designed a fully glazed facade for the adjoining office building. Glass is no guarantee for a slender image, however; the office tower looks massive alongside the refined figure cut by the new hotel.

Next to this ensemble is a gap, the site of the Nieuw Europa complex designed by Hans van Heeswijk and Dick van Gameren and Bjarne Mastenbroek. The building will house offices above a 27-vehicle coach terminal for passengers from the cruise ships.

Pakhuyzen

KCAP Kees Christiaanse and Partners drew up the masterplan for the third section, 'Pakhuyzen', which is dedicated to the combination of work and living. In front of two existing warehouses, Amsterdam (renovation, Meyer & van Schooten) and Afrika (ongoing renovation, KCAP/Villa Nova), three new 'warehouses' have been added. De Architecten Cie designed Huys Europa as a single block composed of three parts: a glazed base, four floors of offices behind concrete facade elements accented with bright orange, and above that penthouses. The honey-coloured Gibraltar apartment block with precast concrete facades (Claus en Kaan) and the brick Azie office building designed by KCAP, are sculptural interpretations of the warehouse typology.

De Zwijger

Afrika abuts 'De Zwijger', another genuine old warehouse punctured by the Jan Schaefer Bridge (Venhoeven CS). This already grave disruption of the heritage building's mass has now been exacerbated for the benefit of a cultural centre (André Van Stigt), so that one can't help wondering what the heritage authorities think they are preserving.

De Loodsen

The fourth cluster of development is dubbed 'De Loodsen' (the sheds). It is a family of six brick towers (Köther and Salman, Wingender Hovenier, hvdn architecten) on a shared base. Between the towers is a partially glass-roofed courtyard that provides access to the apartments and a sense of intimacy in this otherwise large-scale environment.

Nieuw Amerika

The huge scale culminates in 'Nieuw Amerika', now nearing completion. It consists of three extra-large live/work buildings, two of which straddle pre-existing warehouses. 'Detroit' was designed by Bob van Reeth's AWG: a monumental building in black brick, its sternness and angularity puts one in mind of the nearby Piraeus apartment building by Hans Kolhoff and Christian Rapp. DKV is the architect of the rhythmically composed 'Boston', which has a white concrete facade and partially encases the renovated Australia warehouse.

For the time being, the series ends in spectacular fashion with 'Chicago'. Designed by Christian Rapp, the masterplanner of this section, it consists of an inverted L-shape, the short arm of which cantilevers over the Wilhelmina warehouse renovated by Hein de Haan.