The Python Bridge: A Red Leap to Borneo
Why is it significant?
Walk to the foot of the bridge and look up. A bright red ribbon of steel climbs steeply, dips, climbs again and swoops down onto the far bank, like a rollercoaster or a snake frozen in mid-wriggle. Its official name is simply the Hoge Brug, the High Bridge, but nobody calls it that.
Key Facts
| Place | The Python Bridge: A Red Leap to Borneo |
|---|---|
| Address | Hoge Brug, Sporenburg, 1019 Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.37300, 4.94890 |
| Part of Walk | Ships, Silos and a Red Python: Modern Architecture of Amsterdam's Eastern Docklands |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk to the foot of the bridge and look up. A bright red ribbon of steel climbs steeply, dips, climbs again and swoops down onto the far bank, like a rollercoaster or a snake frozen in mid-wriggle. Its official name is simply the Hoge Brug, the High Bridge, but nobody calls it that. Everybody calls it the Python.
It was built in 2001 and designed by Adriaan Geuze of West 8, the same firm that planned this whole district. It spans about ninety metres across the dock between Sporenburg and Borneo. It had to be high, so that boats could pass underneath, and that is why it is for walkers only, with steps rather than a smooth slope. Nearby there is a lower sister bridge, the Lage Brug, which cyclists can ride over.
Climb it. Really, climb it. From the humps you get the best view on this whole walk: back along the water towards the Whale, over the roof terraces of the low houses, and down onto the boats moored in the dock. In 2002 the bridge won an international footbridge award, and on a sunny day you will see why.
Across the water lies Borneo, and its Scheepstimmermanstraat, the Shipwright's Street, is one of the most photographed streets of modern Dutch architecture. Instead of a single developer, private owners were given individual plots, and many different architects designed the houses, each one narrow and tall, each one unlike its neighbour. It is the same idea as the canal houses of Java-eiland, and of the seventeenth-century canal ring: let a hundred people build, and you get a city.
And that is the story of the Eastern Docklands. A station that turned Amsterdam away from the harbour, docks that sent ships to the colonies and emigrants to new lives, empty quays taken over by squatters... and then a generation of architects who brought the city back to the water. From here, the trams along the Piet Heinkade will take you back to Centraal Station.