Pontsteiger

This book is capturing the development of this unusual building in Amsterdam in text and image. Before the first spade had gone into the ground, the photographer Milan Hofmans (Amsterdam, 1971) began recording the genesis of the building and the transformation of the Houthaven zone. This process lasted three and a half years and yielded hundreds of photographs.

Architectural journalist JaapJan Berg (Delft, 1965) complemented this visual narrative with texts and interviewed both the architects Arons and Gelauff and a crane operator on location. MENDO blended all the ingredients with an appropriate design and typography. Bouwinvest Real Estate Investors, the owner of the rented apartments in Pontsteiger, masterminded the whole project with care.

The building is eye-catching and unique in many ways. This book describes and explains the building, its construction, design, the ideas on which it is based, and above all the people who built it. Between the covers of this special publication lies the memory of a significant building, and one that will doubtless transform living in and thinking about the city.

The core of this book consists of the hundreds of photographs of the Pontsteiger project that Milan Hofmans took in the course of three and a half years. He started before the first spade had been sunk into the ground and continued until the building had been completed. From the moment that the decision was taken to construct the building, different stages, many details and atmospheres and the numerous people working on the building were photographed with loving care and attention.

There is no other building like Pontsteiger. Its added significance lies not so much in a specific element but in the combination and culmination of architecture, form, process and importance for the city of Amsterdam. Arons and Gelauff came up with a design that appealed directly to the imagination and grew – literally and metaphorically – to a great height in the course of close collaboration with the builders.

The building is no less than a turning-point for Amsterdam and the growth and transformation that the city is undergoing. What began as a project to symbolise the development of a new dockland zone has by now become a strategic and symbolic benchmark in the tumultuous developments of the capital’s future. That awareness and those expectations were also an important motive for the making of this publication.

This book is part of the memory of Pontsteiger. It reminds us of when there was only a landing stage for the ferry. It reminds us of the building site and the hard work that was carried out. It reminds us of the transformation and densification that have taken place here in a short period of time, but also of the significance that this building will still have long after its completion for living in and thinking about the city of the future and urbanism.

For more in-depth information, read our Journal on the creation of the Pontsteiger book.