The building
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You can spot NEMO from a long way off: just look for the bow of a huge copper-green coloured ship rising from the waters above Amsterdam’s IJ tunnel. Surrounded by the city’s harbour district and within walking distance of Amsterdam Central Station, this modern design stands out yet fits in with its historic setting. The creative mind behind NEMO is Italian architect Renzo Piano, perhaps best known for his work on the Centre Pompidou in Paris
The construction of NEMO presented Italian architect Renzo Piano with a major challenge: the museum had to be built on top of a tunnel. The curvature of the tunnel acted as a foundation and was also the inspiration for the curved shape of the building itself. In a kind of mathematical mirror image of the traffic descending into the tunnel, the architect designed a building that seems to rise out of the water