Where is the I amsterdam sign now?

They left the Museumplein in 2018

For years the main set of letters stood on the Museumplein, in front of the Rijksmuseum. On 4 December 2018 it was taken away, at the wish of the city council. A second set, at the RAI, went in February 2019.

The reason was the crowd. The letters drew too many tourists to places that were busy enough already.

What the letters were

The words “I amsterdam” were chosen in 2004 as the city’s new slogan, in place of “Amsterdam has it”. The letters appeared in the city from 2005. They were designed by the agency KesselsKramer in red, white and black, the colours of the coat of arms of Amsterdam.

They were made of steel, between two and three metres high, and the whole row was 23.5 metres long. They were made that large because they were meant to be shown first at Sail Amsterdam in 2005, and so had to be seen from the water.

How a slogan became a queue

The letters arrived just as social media grew. Meant or not, they became a sight in themselves, above all the set on the Museumplein, where visitors came to photograph themselves with the letters behind them.

Where you can still find them

The set at Schiphol Airport stayed where it was. Another stands on the south bank of the Sloterplas, a lake in Amsterdam Nieuw-West, which draws far fewer tourists than the centre.

That one is hard to get into a single photograph, and on purpose: the letters “STER” lie flat on the ground. It is meant as a course for freerunning, and people climb and play on it, or use the flat letters as a table.

Look at what the letters stood in front of

Stand on the Museumplein where the letters used to be and face the Rijksmuseum. Nothing stands between you and it now. The museum was completed in 1885, and the streets around the square were laid out on a plan based on a design by its architect, Pierre Cuypers.

Then turn around. The Van Gogh Museum, the Stedelijk Museum and the Concertgebouw are all on this one square.