From Model to Metropolis
Station Wildeman featured in ‘Model to Metropolis’ exhibition at Arcam
In the exhibition From Model to Metropolis (May 8 – September 2026), you can experience Amsterdam up close, from early project models to the city’s future developments. Through exceptional scale models, you follow five development phases of the past forty years. In addition to completed buildings, this exhibition also shows models of future buildings, offering a glimpse of the city of tomorrow.
How does a city come into being? Amsterdam is not a given whole, but the result of choices, interests, and ideas that sometimes reinforce each other and sometimes clash. Behind every building lies a story of ambition, negotiation, and imagination, from residents and policymakers, as well as from designers and developers.
For forty years, Arcam has closely followed this dynamic. This exhibition reveals how the city has developed since the 1980s: from the aftermath of large-scale city planning and the restoration of human scale, through experimental urban expansions and iconic architecture, to the pursuit of a sustainable and inclusive future.
At the heart of the exhibition are the models: tangible representations of plans that were once uncertain. They show what was considered possible and what eventually became reality. Sometimes unchanged, sometimes radically different.
But a city is never finished. In addition to completed projects, models of future developments are also on display. They reveal the direction Amsterdam is moving in and the questions that still need to be answered.