Amsterdam offers World Architecture Festival form and function

The Dutch capital, host to the 2018 World Architecture Festival, is known for its architectural treasures ranging from windmills to its more modern buildings.

Top architects are competing for design glory at the World Architecture Festival under way in Amsterdam.

The Netherlands may be well known for its industrial windmills, but many of its more modern structures also show an innovative blend of form and function.

Complex engineering ingenuity was required to build the Dutch capital’s new north-south metro line through the city’s canals and thick layers of mud, while the University of Amsterdam is replacing some of its older buildings with new ones that were designed with social interaction and exchange in mind, both architectural feats accomplished with quiet aspiration to improve the way the city’s citizens live their lives.

Al Jazeera’s Neave Barker reports.