Station Amsterdam Centraal is the largest railway station of Amsterdam, and the second-busiest railway station in the country after Utrecht Centraal. It was designed by Dutch architect Pierre Cuypers and first opened in 1889, replacing Amsterdam Willemspoort Station, which had closed in 1878, as well as the temporary Westerdok Station used from 1878 to 1889. It features a Gothic/Renaissance Revival station building and a cast iron platform roof spanning approximately 40 metres.
The design of the building strongly resembled Cuypers' other architectural masterpiece, the Rijksmuseum. It features a palace-like, Gothic/Renaissance Revival facade, with two turrets and many ornamental details and stone reliefs referring to the capital city's industrial and commercial importance. Cuypers' station reflects the romantic nationalistic mood in the late 19th-century Netherlands, with its many decorative elements glorifying the nation's economic and colonial power at the time.
In 1920, the East Wing of the station was demolished and replaced by "The East", a postal service building designed by Cuypers' son Joseph. A second, narrower and longer but similar roof on the north side of the station was completed in 1922. In the 1950s, a pedestrian tunnel was created between the station and the road in front of it, which terminated inside the station. With the construction of the metro tunnel in the late 1970s, both the pedestrian tunnel and the road in front of the station disappeared.
About the stamp
The stamp is part of the series Europe gives green light, I wrote here.
References
Amsterdam Centraal railway station - Wikipedia
Sender: Dragoş Cioroboiu
Sent from Amsterdam (North Holland / Netherlands), on 28.11.2011
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