Amsterdam Centraal

The tall facade with two towers faces Damrak, while trains run behind it along the former harbor; ferries head toward the river from the other side of the building. The station was built on three artificial islands filled in in the water, and it is supported by eight thousand six hundred eighty-seven piles. A city inn for arriving travelers once stood here on piles, with a long footbridge stretching to it. The clock on the right-hand tower sets the railway rhythm, while the circle on the left shows the wind over the IJ.

In eighteen sixty-four, Minister of the Interior Johan Rudolph Thorbecke worked to bring Amsterdam's scattered railways together here, by the IJ. He was responsible for the national railway network and wanted to connect the lines that approached the city from different directions. This required a central passenger and freight station.

The chosen site was water at the time. An open harbor remained between the city and the IJ, and roughly where Station Island now stands, the Nieuwe Stadsherberg stood on piles. Amsterdam officials had built it back in the seventeenth century for travelers arriving after the city gates had closed. A long footbridge led to the inn; passengers from ships spent the night here, and ships were sold at auction.

The Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce, representing merchants and shipowners, demanded that the station be built by Leidseplein, on land. Its members made their living from the harbor and feared that embankments and tracks would take up space needed by ships. Thorbecke insisted on the opposite: rail and water transport had to be brought together by the IJ so that cargo could pass from ships into railway cars beside the port.

The dispute lasted five years. In eighteen sixty-nine, the Amsterdam City Council accepted the government's plan. During the negotiations, the area of the embankment was reduced, and navigable spans were planned beneath the railway tracks. The Nieuwe Stadsherberg was demolished. Three islands were filled in on the harbor floor, then builders drove eight thousand six hundred eighty-seven piles.

Thorbecke got the decision he needed, but he never saw the station itself: he died seventeen years before it opened. Architect Pierre Cuypers gave form to the already chosen layout of the site. Travelers were meant to pass through the tall central block and emerge before Damrak, the road into the old city. That is why Cuypers gave the main entrance the appearance of a city gate with two towers. The tracks ran behind the facade along the former harbor, joining the former dead-end routes.

The station opened on October fifteenth, eighteen eighty-nine. About fourteen thousand special tickets allowing people to inspect the platforms alone were sold. The merchants' fears proved justified only halfway. The port continued to grow farther east, where ship cargoes really were transferred into railway cars. But the open view from the city toward the IJ disappeared behind the long building and the tracks.

People now transfer here between trains, the metro, trams, buses, and ferries precisely because Thorbecke chose the boundary between the old city and the harbor. On the right-hand tower of the facade, Cuypers placed a clock for the railway timetable. The round dial on the left-hand tower shows the wind direction. Trains pass behind the towers, and ferries depart across the IJ from the other side of the station.