The Eastern Docklands are where Amsterdam stopped pretending the canal house was the only idea it had. Java-eiland and KNSM-eiland are two old shipping piers rebuilt in the 1990s as a single argument about how a modern city can sit on water — and the best way to read it is a loop out and back from the tram. Three and a half kilometres of pure architecture.
From Azartplein, head onto Java-eiland first. Sjoerd Soeters sliced the pier with four canals, and the nine footbridges over them — by Rombouts and Droste — each spell a letter in an alphabet the artists made up; cross them and they reveal themselves. Double back and take KNSM-laan east. Kollhoff and Rapp's Piraeus block runs along one side, a brick superblok with a courtyard kept secret inside it; Barcelonaplein makes a steel gateway of the boulevard's start.
Keep on past the converted warehouses to the eastern point, where Jo Coenen's round Emerald Empire stands in the water with the IJ opening out beyond. Then the boulevard back, and tram 7 home.
