Hotel Okura Amsterdam

The 23-floor building has a height of 78 metres, and was designed by Dutch architects Bernard Bijvoet and Gerard Holt and Japanese architects Yoshiro Taniguchi and Yozo Shibata.

The hotel is located on the Ferdinand Bolstraat and the Jozef Israelskade near the Barbiersbrug over the Amstel Canal, and was opened in September 1971 by Prince Claus.

Hendrik Petrus Berlage had once intended the location of the old RAI for the construction of a concert hall and public house.

When an opera house was planned to be developed there in the 1970s, as part of the renovation of De Pijp, the neighbourhood protested under the slogan "Opera aan de Ferdinand Bolstraat?

The plan was cancelled and the Japanese investors in the hotel complex demanded that the area be given a commercial use.