Usually, the only way to view a submerged shipwreck in person is to don scuba gear and dive beneath the surface of the sea — but if this proposal by architecture firm ZJA becomes a reality, all you’ll have to do is walk into a new aquarium-like museum built around the wreckage of the Dutch East India Company ship “Amsterdam,” which sunk near the English town of Hastings after a stormy night in 1749.

The ship could no longer be steered in the storm, and as the story goes, the captain intentionally beached it on the shoreline, allowing all 330 sailors, officers, passengers, soldiers, and others onboard to escape safely. Within a few months, it was overtaken by 23 feet of sand with a high clay content, effectively preserving it in place. It has remained there ever since, and it’s still in remarkably good condition.
ZJA proposes transporting it back to Amsterdam without ever lifting it out of the water, working with industrial movers to excavate it from the seabed, load it onto a specially designed underwater dock, and sail it over 250 miles back to its home country. There, the 131-foot-long vessel would remain submerged as a capsule-like steel and glass museum called “Docking the Amsterdam” is built around it. A white domed canopy made of tensile fabrics would be visible above the surface, covering walkways that grant visitors overhead views of the wreckage.
The underwater areas of the museum let visitors see the ship close-up from e...