#unusual apt. Amsterdam

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Thanks to Ingek73 for finding this unusual apt. in Amsterdam that spans across 3 buildings. They broke thru the walls of the 3 buildings, highlighted in the photo, that together traverse 5 centuries. 2bds, 2ba - €2.650M / $2.810M

The entrance is in the newest building that was built in the 20th century.

There are stairs and an elevator to the spacious apt.

There's a large walk-in cloak room next to the kitchen.

The kitchen description says that when the cabinets are opened with electric controls, it suddenly becomes a warm space with the special table and bench specifically designed for it. Wish they showed it.

Thru the kitchen doors is the living room space.

I suppose that the steps are here b/c the two buildings' floors didn't line up.

The description also states that this Zen apt.'s design and furnishings are aimed at maintaining a very spacious and minimalist appearance.

The emphasis is on avoiding unnecessary objects and creating an oasis of peace. Most furniture is handmade by craftsmen in Amsterdam and Japan. Each piece is specifically designed for the space and contributes to the overall harmony and aesthetics of the interior.

Natural materials, such as limestone, washi paper, cedar, French oak, American walnut and jute, have been used to create a connection with nature.

French doors create a conservatory-like ambiance. The dining room can be closed off with double doors or kept open in connection with the sitting room when entertaining.

From the dining room there's access to one of the two bedrooms and the hall with adjacent study room.

Both bedrooms have identical bathrooms.

The second bedroom at the rear has a special element that they don't show- a glass window in the dividing wall between the bathrooms can be changed from opaque to transparent at the touch of a button 

The front entrance to the apt. is in the building on the right.

The view of the canal from the eight windows makes this apartment rare.

#unusual apt. Amsterdam #Amsterdam canal house #houses #house tours #Zen apt. #home tour #submissions

[kostavox]

SIRENS - Prelude - Worldwide Premiere UK in September 2017 from EXERO FILMS on Vimeo.

The Sirens With more than a passing reference to Homer's Odyssey, the apt metaphor is testimony to the sheer musicality and realism that allows this potent 3-way system, CNC carved from a block of solid aluminium [or titanium] to engage and captivate it's audience with its sound and to invigorate the mind with it's extreme sculptural aesthetic. Using ideas borrowed from Neumann TLM 50 and M150 microphones, the SIREN embeds the Accuton drivers into spheres mounted onto an organic "time-aligned" sculpture. Despite the unique and unusual shape, the design is a seriously engineered, no-compromise loudspeaker with emphasis on absolute sound quality. Accuton ultra-low colouration ceramic drivers are used in some of the most expensive systems currently available, but it's only when you marry them to a curvacious, stiff, inert massive machined "body" that you can really hear - and probably for the first time appreciate, their sheer neutrality. FUTURE PROOF. In a true "bespoke" manner, the actual configuration of drivers can be chosen, Since there are different "levels" of Accuton ceramic drivers , up to and including their ultra-expensive "diamond" tweeter, the customer has a choice of which tweeter, midrange and 8" woofer they would prefer to use now, or in the future. Follow us on FACEBOOK or LINKEDIN: facebook.com/kostas.metaxas.37 linkedin.com/in/kostas-metaxas-b6510717/ Catalogue: metaxas.com/HIFI_2015.pdf Metaxas & Sins BV Overschiestraat 184 1062XK Amsterdam THE NETHERLANDS

[newstfionline]

Geert Wilders, Reclusive Provocateur, Rises Before Dutch Vote

By Alissa J. Rubin, NY Times, Feb. 27, 2017

SPIJKENISSE, the Netherlands--He wants to end immigration from Muslim countries, tax head scarves and ban the Quran. He is partly of Indonesian heritage, and dyes his hair bright blond. He is omnipresent on social media but lives as a political phantom under police protection, rarely campaigning in person and reportedly sleeping in a different location every night.

He has structured his party so that he is the only official, giving him the liberty to remain, above all things, in complete control, and a provocateur and an uncompromising verbal bomb thrower.

Geert Wilders, far-right icon, is one of Europe’s unusual politicians, not least because he comes from the Netherlands, one of Europe’s most socially liberal countries, with a centuries-long tradition of promoting religious tolerance and welcoming immigrants.

How he and his party fare in the March 15 elections could well signal how the far right will do in pivotal elections in France, Germany and possibly Italy later this year, and ultimately determine the future of the European Union. Mr. Wilders (pronounced VIL-ders) has promised to demand a “Nexit” referendum on whether the Netherlands should follow Britain’s example and leave the union.

“The Netherlands is kind of a bellwether, a lot of trends manifest themselves here first,” said Hans Anker, a Dutch political strategist who has worked both in the Netherlands and the United States.

“I wouldn’t rule out that Wilders could be prime minister,” he added. “This one is fundamentally unpredictable.”

Remarkably, Mr. Wilders, 53, has managed to build a movement despite his infrequent public appearances. Living under threat since the police discovered plots against him in 2004 has turned him into a politician ahead of his time, using the internet and later social media to talk to voters without the filter of journalists.

It has proved a particularly effective means of reaching disillusioned citizens. Other politicians have followed his lead but almost none have done it as effectively, Dutch experts said.

“He’s the most strategic, smartest politician out there,” said Sarah de Lange, a political science professor at the University of Amsterdam. “He’s very skilled. He’s a very good debater. He has media savvy. Internationally, he’s compared to Trump. But with Wilders every tweet is thought through, calculated. With Trump it’s emotional.”

Right now Mr. Wilders’s party looks set to win more seats than any other or to come in second. However, he has historically polled better before elections than he has performed in them. Still, after pollsters underestimated the likelihood of both Brexit and the victory of Donald Trump last year, no one is relying on predictions.

But whether Mr. Wilders’s party wins the most votes, or enters a government, hardly matters. He has already succeeded in one of his main ambitions--to push politics in the Netherlands to the right and make possible a conversation about shutting out immigrants and dismantling the European Union that was unthinkable not long ago.

Mr. Wilders is close ideologically to Marine Le Pen of France, the far-right National Front leader who is set to make it to a runoff in presidential elections this spring. He was also close to Mr. Trump’s campaign, and is sometimes even called the “Dutch Trump,” though he has a far longer political history and as many differences as similarities.

Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Wilders is unafraid to say things in the most direct, divisive, dismissive, and often disparaging and insulting of ways. Similar to Mr. Trump, many of his supporters feel buoyed and relieved that he is giving voice to what they cannot say, or feel they are not supposed to say.

Last week Mr. Wilders delighted in publicly referring to “Moroccan scum” before a gaggle of reporters. He has called the hijab a “useless piece of cloth.” He has been convicted of inciting discrimination and insulting an ethnic group, but was let off without a penalty.

The one time Mr. Wilders was in government, in 2010, he had an informal liaison with the mainstream conservative party’s coalition, but he bolted when it wanted to cut back pension benefits. Those in his parliamentary group are not technically members of his party, allowing Mr. Wilders to entirely control his party’s platform and decision-making.

Being a party of one also allows him to avoid most campaign finance and disclosure rules, leaving the sources of his money murky, though he receives funding from at least one American conservative group.

Mr. Wilders describes himself as an outsider. Yet he is the third-longest-sitting member of the Dutch Parliament and has spent his life in politics since he was about 28.

In recent years, because of the apparent threats against him, Mr. Wilders has become progressively more isolated. He sees his wife once or twice a week and has cut off his brother, who disagrees with him politically, the brother has said in media interviews. He maintains the image of being present through carefully dispensing Twitter posts, videos and television interviews. His rare public appearances guarantee that every time he ventures out he attracts a media circus.

Last week, he suspended his campaign appearances altogether after reports that a member of his police security detail was suspected of leaking his movements to a Dutch-Moroccan criminal gang.

Still, he manages to travel to give speeches outside the Netherlands, including at the Republican convention in Cleveland, where he spoke at the “Milo Yiannopoulos Wake Up Party,” a gathering of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people for Mr. Trump.

He has also traveled on many occasions to Israel, for which he developed a deep affection after spending months on a kibbutz as a young man. He is described by political compatriots as friendly with Benjamin Netanyahu, the right-wing Israeli prime minister.

Over time, Mr. Wilders’s own positions have hardened, his colleagues said. He arrived in The Hague, the Netherlands, in 1991-92 as a parliamentary assistant in the mainstream conservative party then led by Frits Bolkestein.

Today Mr. Bolkestein likens Mr. Wilders to “the sorcerer’s apprentice,” who, the story goes, uses one of his newly learned spells to enchant a broom into washing the floor for him.

Soon the water is all over, and he realizes that he does not know how to stop the broom. He tries splitting it in two with an ax, but then there are two brooms, then four. “The apprentice can’t stop,” Mr. Bolkestein said.

It is an apt description of Mr. Wilders, who sometimes seems to try to outdo himself more for shock value and to grab attention than for practical effect, particularly on immigration.

“In 2012 his position was no new mosques in the Netherlands; now it is ‘close all the mosques,’” said Michiel Servaes, a Labor Party member in Parliament who has served with him. “In 2012 it was limit asylum seekers to 1,000 a year; now it’s ‘no new asylum seekers.’”

Yet Mr. Wilders’s stands have brought the mainstream right to advocate strict limits on aid for immigrants and helped spawn new small right-wing parties, all with strong positions against immigration and in support of stricter rules to push immigrants to accept Dutch culture, Mr. Servaes said.

E. C. Hendriks, a political sociologist who is allied with a new far-right party, the Forum for Democracy, says unease with immigration and disillusionment with the European Union are rife. “Certain groups in Dutch society have had trouble integrating,” he said.

Yet immigrants are costly for the Dutch since the country has a generous social welfare system and pays for newcomers’ education, health care, housing and food.

“So if certain groups come and do not speak Dutch and do not share our values, if they don’t integrate, it’s a bigger problem,” he said.

The Netherlands, with its religious tolerance and relative prosperity--unemployment is among the lowest in Europe--may seem an unlikely place for the far right to take hold.

Yet it is another measure of Mr. Wilders’s idiosyncratic appeal that in a country with such an open lifestyle, some Dutch are turning to him to safeguard their liberal social values.

A longtime parliamentary colleague, Harry van Bommel, who came to office in 1998, the same year as Mr. Wilders, said it was difficult to deny that the political winds had shifted in his favor. “In this country there is an underestimation of the number of people who are afraid of Islam,” he said.

That turn was spurred in part by the sense of shock at the assassination in 2002 of Pim Fortuyn, a right-leaning politician, and two years later, that of the filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, both of whom provoked and spoke out harshly against immigrants.

It was against this backdrop that Mr. Wilders formed his own party and began to find a wider audience. Today he has pockets of strength in almost every part of the country.

#Netherlands #Geert Wilders

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Ingek73 submitted another of my beloved Amsterdam canal homes. This one is stunning and it has 3bd. 2.5ba. and is listed for  €1.350.000 / $1,498.03.

This is my kinda place. In my building the elevator is waaaaay down the hall from my apt. 

Check out this entrance hall to the residence. 

Spacious kitchen/dining room. Look at the lighting, isn’t that unusual?

Large open concept kitchen/living room. Beautiful built-in shelving.

The hall also leads to the glass door of the main bd. 

Plenty space that includes a large counter space for a desk, dressing table, etc., and a wall of closets.

Beautiful shower room. 

This is a 2 fl. apt. on the 3rd fl. of the building. I love the lights.

Large secondary bd. 

The 3rd bd. isn’t as spacious and is more like a nursery or home office size.

Look at the half bath and how the room curves.

Wow, look at this unusual sink. 

What a great roof top deck.

Plus, it’s not often that you get a space to park the car, let alone a garage.

Soooo pretty.

https://www.funda.nl/koop/amsterdam/appartement-42189922-krom-boomssloot-57-c/

#canal house amsterdam #houses #house tours #home tour

[hometoursandotherstuff]

This is the pink-lit entrance to a funky apt. on the canal in Amsterdam. (I like it, except for all the fur and taxidermy.)

Isn’t that the most fantastic retro TV? Love the industrial light, too. The coffee table is bizarre- I can see tentacles, some kind of carving, maybe an alligator...

I always liked that horse lamp. 

The sitting area shares a space with a dining area and the kitchen.

Fancy inlaid table, Cat Woman, Lady Godiva, and assorted chairs including a few office models comprise the dining room decor.k

The kitchen is ultra modern and has some industrial elements, as well as a Medieval door.

Looking at the apt. from the kitchen- notice the unusual exhaust fan over the cooktop.

The elegant bedroom features double chandeliers, ornate gold mirror and side stand, plus a peacock and lots of fur on the bed.

They have to pass thru the bedroom storage closet to get to the bathroom. As you can see, some statues await.

They look kind of pissed. Anyway, the bath is luxurious and I like the shelving. 

The reptilian toilet is in a separate room. 

#funky decor #amsterdam apt. #unique decor

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Margot lives in a modern building in Amsterdam and her apartment is full of objects that mix colorful ethnicity, contemporary, and maybe a few other styles, completely different from the gray and anonymous façade of the building.

Her living room is an explosion of color and pattern, plus she’s worked in lots of seating.

Those are some heavily industrial light fixtures, she’s chosen.

The kitchen is clearly in a modern apt., but Margot dressed up the backsplash with a vintage bright green & blue wallpaper. What is that blue pipe, an exhaust? I’ve never seen one like it. 

The duplex apt. has cool spiral stairs. Margot places a colorful chair beside them and hung a floral print paper on a wall, with a lovely green locker cabinet.

In this long connecting hall, she hung a different curtain on each window.

The bedroom has a Romantic/Granny look, if there is such a thing.

Very organized daughter’s room is no-nonsense. She’s pushed the bed against a wall of shelving.

Unusual, that they would put a blue clawfoot in a modern mosaic bath. That would’ve sold me on the apt., right there.

http://olaalhaeezuvim.blogspot.com/

#vintage decor #eclectic vintage decor #apt. decor ideas

[hometoursandotherstuff]

The attic of this 100 yr. old apt. building on the water in Amsterdam was remodeled into a stunning apt.

Aren’t the beams magnificent?

The bright white against the beams make a beautiful contrast.

Look at this shower.

There’s an upper level that is very unusual.

It must be wonderful to sit out there and watch the boats go by.

Look at this- kind of like living in an A-Frame.

They put a bath up here, too.

Look at the suspended glass wall in front of this desk.

What a cool apt. It’s like a treehouse.

https://www.pufikhomes.com/

#attic apt. #amsterdam apt.

[kostavox]

The Macrophone Reference Studio Modular Monitor from EXERO FILMS on Vimeo.

With over 40 years of playback and 25 years of concert recording experience [metaxas.com/recordings.html ], Kostas Metaxas has once again subverted what is or isn't possible in the aesthetic and state of the art in loudspeaker design.

Once Metaxas perfected the art of CNC machining organic shapes with amplifiers, it opened up similar possibilities with speakers.

CNC allows the sculpting of a shape with incredible rigidity, in a much smaller form factor than is possible with other materials. At the same time it minimizes front baffle diffraction whilst maximizing internal volume for an ideal and extended bass response.

The Macrophones

vimeo.com/215639674

Mimicking the inverse of the microphones used in purist recordings, the "Macrophones" are mini-monitors designed to be used to seriously monitor recording/playback, which can be scaled with the addition of "modules" to become as miniature for location work to as grand as is necessary for studio or home playback.

They were specifically developed to monitor for the perfect positioning of microphones in 3D space and to help the recording engineer stereo mix the 4-5 microphone channels in real time to a stereo analogue tape. [ metaxas.com/recordings.html ]

Each macrophone is machined in two halves forming an ideal shape to mount the Accuton ceramic drivers and reduce cabinet colourations. The solid CNC-machined solid aluminium essentially extends the ceramic cone supports from the rigid speaker baskets to the entire cabinet.

A pair of Macrophones can fit into a Pelican 1600 series case to be bumped in and out of the most important acoustic venues in the world - Abbey Rd, Musikverein, Concertgebouw , Carnegie Hall or your home.

The Sirens

With more than a passing reference to Homer's Odyssey, the apt metaphor is testimony to the sheer musicality and realism that allows this potent 3-way system, CNC carved from a block of solid aluminium [or titanium] to engage and captivate it's audience with its sound and to invigorate the mind with it's extreme sculptural aesthetic.

Using ideas borrowed from Neumann TLM 50 and M150 microphones, the SIREN embeds the Accuton drivers into spheres mounted onto an organic "time-aligned" sculpture. Despite the unique and unusual shape, the design is a seriously engineered, no-compromise loudspeaker with emphasis on absolute sound quality.

Accuton ultra-low colouration ceramic drivers are used in some of the most expensive systems currently available, but it's only when you marry them to a curvacious, stiff, inert massive machined "body" that you can really hear - and probably for the first time appreciate, their sheer neutrality.

FUTURE PROOF. In a true "bespoke" manner, the actual configuration of drivers can be chosen, Since there are different "levels" of Accuton ceramic drivers , up to and including their ultra-expensive "diamond" tweeter, the customer has a choice of which tweeter, midrange and 8" woofer they would prefer to use now, or in the future.

Follow us on FACEBOOK or LINKEDIN: facebook.com/kostas.metaxas.37 linkedin.com/in/kostas-metaxas-b6510717/

Press Kit Images: dropbox.com/sh/tqjl4tf2e0x5xrv/AABBxE9NGTmCkdksES3fJwbza?dl=0

Catalogue: metaxas.com/HIFI_2015.pdf

Recent review "MARQUIS": stereo.net.au/reviews/review-metaxas-sins-marquis-headphone-amplifier Metaxas & Sins BV Overschiestraat 184 1062XK Amsterdam THE NETHERLANDS KVK 66427282 VAT:NL 856548431B01 Email :[email protected] Phone :[phone]