July 20: Amsterdam evening

More from around the city in the afternoon and evening. It's worth noting that while I was working on the immediately foregoing Amsterdam pages, King Willem Alexander acceded to the throne upon the abdication of his mother Queen Beatrix. Topical!

1223

The Centraal Station has a clocklike wind direction indicator. I don't know whether it's mechanically connected to a weathervane or what, but it's pretty neat.

1226

We took a tram ride out to the borough of Nieuw-West on the western periphery for a lecture on the history of Amsterdam's development. Watch your fingers!

1227

Along Jan Tooropstraat, a large portico at Sint Lucas Andreas Ziekenhuis (Hospital) with an isometric view of the hospital campus.

1230

Some of the geese were waiting for the tram to ride to the center of town; others loitered in indecision across the way; the pigeons, frustrated, tipped over a bicycle. (This is near the intersection of Jan Tooropstraat and Jan Evertsenstraat.)

1234

The building where we saw the lecture, the Vliegbasis de Huygens, is along Jan Evertsenstraat. This other building with a series of cool curved monitors for a roof is immediately adjacent to or part of it.

1236

The friendly 13 tram arriving to take us back to the center after the lecture.

1237

Back in the center: Magna Plaza, just behind the Royal Palace on Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, a fin-de-siècle post office converted into a shopping mall.

1241

The old Telegraafgebouw further down Nieuwezijds Voorburgswal is, I think, in the Amsterdam School style, but its tower has a rather Nordic look.

1242

These mysterious perforated pavers must be some secret code. That's the simplest explanation.

1247

At the corner of Kalverstraat, a pedestrian shopping street, and the tiny Enge Kapelsteeg, is this curious concave wall hosting an even curiouser bay window.

1249

Further along on Kalverstraat, a rather fetching façade that seems stylistically somewhere between the Amsterdam School, Art Deco, and minimalized classicism.

1250

And then a very curious façade indeed, a rather Mondrianesque composition. I'm not sure where this is, maybe still on Kalverstraat.

1254

Out on the Muntplein stands the storied Munttoren.

1270

I went out on a walk after dinner and the twilight on the canals became magical as it deepened. Here, the early-16th-century Oost-Indisch Huis along the Kloveniersburgwal. (Burgwal means rampart, so this was one of the edges of the medieval city.)

1273

A few doors further down, a pleasingly solid stone façade.

1276

A charming twilight scene along the Raamgracht at its joint with the Kloveniersburgwal.

1278

YO DAWG I HERD U LIKE WINDOWS SO WE PUT SOME WINDOWS IN YOUR WINDOWS SO U CAN LOOK AT THE VIEW WHILE U LOOK AT THE VIEW (This is the Radisson across the way, at the corner of the Kloveniersburgwal and Rusland.)

1280

The Kloveniersburgwal joins at its southern end with the Amstel, past this totally sweet Staalstraat drawbridge and the wedge-shaped NH Doelen, Amsterdam's oldest hotel.

1284

Across from the Amstel street, at the corner where the Amstel becomes the Rokin, is the similarly #swaggy Hotel de l'Europe.

1285

A choice bit of last glow over the Rokin.

1288

Hey what's this cool old tower with the wires and needles? Hint: it's the Munttoren again.

1292

Just beyond, a fuller view of the Carlton. Its leglike piers rather remind me of Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation.

1299

One of the really neat view alignments of the city is that at the end of the Nieuwe Spiegelstraat/Spiegelgracht you can see one of the towers of the Rijksmuseum, here viewed from the other end at the Herengracht.

1302

A ghost rider along the Herengracht in the deepening twilight, looking east toward Vijzelstraat.

1304

From the Nieuwe Spiegelstraat bridge, dusk approaches over the Keizersgracht and a tram trundles over the canal on the Leidsestraat in the distance.

1306

Finally back at the Hans Brinker right at isobrightness.