2023 edition

The Soft Atlas of Amsterdam 96 pages with 37 drawings

All those years of drawing Amsterdam has made me see it as a city in flux. The Amsterdam of my youth was a like a set of bad teeth, with gaps and cavities where houses once stood. Today, all those gaps have been filled and people look for ways to expand upward or to build on former industrial zones.
The title of this atlas refers to Soft City, a book written in 1974 by British author and travel writer Jonathan Raban. His idea is that the city is where the solid concrete reality of buildings and asphalt meets the malleable, subjective experience and expectations of the people who live and work there. When I chose this title for my book I had no idea how appropriate the word ‘soft’ was for the Amsterdam that I have come to know from seeing it with new eyes, while still calling it home.

Jan Rothuizen
Amsterdam, 2023