I had a hard time taking a picture that accurately demonstrated the angle of many of the buildings in Amsterdam, but I thought this capture illustrates it pretty well. They were built leaning forward to prevent damage to the facade from hoisting things up to the top floor on the hook that appears on all the buildings here. The angle got so extreme that a law was passed in 1565 restricting this lean to 1:25 so the houses wouldn't collapse into the street.