First of all let me state that I owe a debt of gratitude to my PBASE colleague John Hamers for alerting me to the existence of this fine series of buildings with his excellent gallery last year. As I was passing through Amsterdam myself this year, I could not resist the idea of shooting Zaandam for myself. I have tried to look for different angles but inevitably there will be some similarities to John's imagery.

Zaandam is a 15 minute train journey from Amsterdam. Zaandam town centre is being radically revamped on the basis of an urban development plan by Sjoerd Soeters. Soeters is reinstating the historical street layout, reconstructing an urban waterway and reintroducing atmosphere into the somewhat impersonal and dull town centre, employing features of the historical Zaanse Schans village. The Inntel hotel is the new centre’s eye-catcher. The colossal, twelve-storey-high hotel tower, essentially square in plan, is a monumental stacking and interpretation of various green-painted house types typical of the Zaan region, ranging from a stately notary’s dwelling to worker’s cottages. ‘The Blue House’, on the left is inspired by the work Claude Monet painted at Zaandam in 1871. The overall result is striking. The varied window styles, broad protruding sections and bay windows, and decorative white ridge-pieces lend depth to the façade. This was a descriptive piece written by a local reporter during the time of construction a few years ago and it gives a pretty accurate account of what has taken place.