Amsterdam: The Latest Architecture and News

KAAN Architecten has won the commission to design the New Amsterdam Courthouse. The new building will replace the current judicial complex at the intersection of Zuidas and Parnassusweg, which is slated for demolition. The Courthouse of Amsterdam is the largest in the Netherlands and handles 150,000 cases a year with a staff of 200 judges and 800 professionals. KAAN Architecten describes the building's design as both "stately" and "distinguished," stating that the intention was to create a facility that understands justice as an open process, and thus incorporates ways for the public to engage with the Courthouse.

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The Dutch Structuralist architect Aldo van Eyck left his mark in Amsterdam – not only in the form of buildings but also, perhaps surprisingly, in the form of urban playgrounds. Over the course of his career he created a network of more than 700 playgrounds throughout the capital. Today, only a handful of these remain intact. A special publication, compiled by Denisa Kollarova and Anna van Lingen, revisits the seventeen remaining Van Eyck playgrounds in Amsterdam’s city centre. The following extract from the book seeks to introduce the project, and describe its urgency.

We live in an era in which there are not many carefully constructed playgrounds. We don’t like what we see. Have we—city decision makers, architects, designers, parents, friends —forgotten to be critical?

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