From southeast (right hand) till northwest:
The large white building is the National Maritime Museum (600 metres to the southeast). The museum is housed in a former naval storehouse, 's Lands Zeemagazijn or Admiraliteits Magazijn, constructed in 1656. The museum moved to this building in 1973. The museum is dedicated to maritime history and contains many artefacts associated with shipping and sailing. The collection contains, among other things, paintings, scale models, weapons and world maps. The paintings depict Dutch naval officers such as Michiel de Ruyer and historical sea battles. It attracts around 350,000 visitors annually, which makes it the twenty-second most visited museum in the Netherlands.A smaller replica of the building is part of the Dutch Village Gaoqiao, a planned city and neighborhood of the large community Pudong, Shanghai.
Moored outside the museum is a replica of the Amsterdam, an 18th-century ship which sailed between the Netherlands and the East Indies. The replica was built in 1985–1990.
The building rising from the water like a ship is the NEMO Science Museum. It contains five floors of hands-on science exhibitions and is the largest science center in the Netherlands. It attracts around 670,000 visitors annually, which makes it the eighth most visited museum in the Netherlands.
NEMO is built on the IJ tunnel. The tunnel tube serves as a foundation. Pillars above the south entrance of the tunnel support the building. The construction of NEMO in 1997 made the IJ tunnel 90 meters longer. You should think that the green copper building resembles a ship. However, architect Renzo Piano has actually mirrored the IJ tunnel in his design: where the tunnel goes down, the building rises. More facts about the IJ tunnel which connects the main city to the north part:
- 50,000 cars pass through the tunnel every day and three buses a minute.
- 160 pulling piles keep the tunnel at the bottom of the river. Without these piles, the tunnel would float.
- The tunnel is illuminated by 559,220 LED lamps.
- In 1974, 41 stray animals were found in the tunnel. An antelope that had escaped from Artis ZOO once ran through it.
- 150,000 electricity cables run through the tunnel that supply the head of North Holland.
On the left (northwest) you see Amsterdam Centraal Station. It is a major international railway hub, it is used by 192,000 passengers a day, making it the second busiest railway station in the country after Utrecht Centraal and the most visited Rijksmonument of the Netherlands. Amsterdam Centraal was designed by Dutch architect Pierre Cuypers and first opened in 1889. It features a Gothic, Renaissance Revival station building and a cast iron platform roof spanning approximately 40 metres.
Behind you, you see a bust of Prince William Frederick Henry of the Netherlands (Dutch: Willem Frederik Hendrik; 13 June 1820 – 14 January 1879). He was the third son of King William II of the Netherlands and his wife, Grand Duchess Anna Pavlona of Russia.
Source: wikipedia.