Netherlands Field Trip January 2012: Day 2 - Amsterdam

Monday 23 January 2012

After a civilised breakfast at 7.30am, the day began with a walk through Amsterdam to the Central Station for a presentation on Amsterdam and IJburg. A tour of the development at the Central Station followed - the original buildings date back to 1889 and feature a roof span of nearly 40 metres fabricated in cast iron by Andrew Handyside of Derby, England. The redevelopment started in 2002 with the construction of the North/South Metro Line Station which is being built in front, behind and underneath the existing station.

Amsterdam Central Station by Ardenswayoflife via Flickr

Next stop was the IJburg district where construction began in 2000 and is due to finish in 2012. IJburg is being constructed on 7 artificial islands in the IJburgmeer - it takes 12 months to construct each island and make it strong enough to take the weight of buildings. Each island will have a unique character and a total of 18,000 houses are planned across the 7 islands. For more information look at the IJburg website. The photo below shows the students and staff on a tour of the development:

Tour of IJburg - photo by George Blumberg

There are lots of different parts to the IJburg development - have a look at a video showing images of the development:

We moved on to a tour of the East Harbour Docks development before returning to our hotel for a well earned rest.