Travel solutions: Amsterdam
Time Out ditches the coffee shops and museums of central Amsterdam in favour of the architecturally daring new side of town
There are different ways to develop miles of derelict dockland. Canary Wharf is reinvention on an inhuman scale: a soulless, overbearing collection of giant towers built in tribute to corporate greed and the rampant egotism of banks – no wonder Margaret Thatcher liked it so much; but across the North Sea, Amsterdam has taken a more human and compelling approach to Osterdocks, its own eastern docklands.
Previously associated with prostitution, drug abuse and squats, after ten year of redevelopment Osterdocks is now a unique example of the redemptive powers of modern architecture and design. Here culture, rather than capital, is king and while it is still possible to spend three days in a beer and pot haze squinting through prostitutes’ windows and eyeing up Dutch masters, a weekend in Amsterdam now offers the opportunity of losing yourself in what is little short of an architectural wonderland.
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Since this isn’t London, everything is much smaller, and Amsterdam’s East End actually begins immediately behind the Centraal Station, where you can find the structure that both marks the start of the area and sets its tone.
The Post CS building, a coolly functional 11-storey block on the waterside, is housing the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art on the second and third floors until the renovation of its main gallery space in the Museum Quarter is completed in 2008.
This temporary status means the classic works from its collection can’t be safely displayed here – so no Picasso on show – but it has forced the museum to fall back on its other strengths: developments in contemporary design, video and photography. Recent exhibitions have included an overview of airline design – from sick bags through planes and airports to stewards’ uniforms – that was witty, compelling and wonderfully curated.
As you’d expect, there is a well-designed simple café (the apple cake and coffee are perfect preparation for looking at old sick bags), but if you go back into the lift and up to the top floor, you’ll find Bar Eleven, perhaps the best bar in town, but also a great place to have a relaxing lunch and mix with Amsterdam’s art and design crowd who, unlike London’s, are recognisably human and concerned with art rather than themselves. Every Thursday night there is a lecture or a film show and there are gigs at weekends.
