ING bank has a reputation for keeping up with architectural trends and the head office of this enormous multinational banking and insurance company at the southern end of Amsterdam has inspired such unfavourable nicknames as the shoe and the vacuum cleaner. A bit further east you'll find another architectural highlight that belongs to ING in the Amsterdamse Poort area of Amsterdam Zuidoost. The building, which was completed in 1987, accommodates 2,500 employees and consists of ten jointed towers of six to eight floors each, with hardly any vertical sections on the outside. With some imagination, you might even see a modern castle, or perhaps a rock. In any event, locals simply call it the Sand Castle due to the millions of bricks used in its construction and its sandy colour.