Telefooncentrale (Telephone Exchange) Amsterdam-West, designed by the architect Albert Boeken and built in 1928. It was in use until 2015 and will be redeveloped into housing. All photos by the author.
Recently I was sick and homebound for a while, so I decided to go for a digital adventure in my city of Amsterdam. I set out on a trip in Google Earth, spending hours and hours flying around in that 3D version of reality. Not all European cities can be explored this way yet, but lucky for me, most of Amsterdam can. Not that it looks perfect—Google Earth’s interpretation of the real world is often pretty glitchy, with trees from 1995 computer games, facades resembling faces with running mascara, and quite some constructions looking like melting architectural models. But at the same time, much of this makes for some fascinating, if unintentional, cyber art. My challenge became to find buildings you generally don’t see when you’re cycling around Amsterdam. Every time I found one, I tried to uncover bits and pieces of its history through websites and archives. Here’s a selection from my harvest.This article originally appeared on The Creators Project Netherlands.Related:Screenshots from Google Street View Get a Color-Drenched MakeoverThe 'Anonymous Gods' Of Google Street ViewThe Strange Beauty of Finding Yourself in Google Street View
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