Hello friends. I’m going to share a short walk I took around Rotterdam in the Netherlands. I started my visit at the Old Harbor. This spot was popular long before the war. The city itself started in the thirteenth century near a dam on the Rotte river. In fact its name comes from there. Since it did not have direct access to the North Sea, it remained in the shadow of Amsterdam and Dordrecht for quite a long time. As a port it did not attract as much attention as those two cities and did not have such great importance.
The city is built on the Maas River. I had encountered this river earlier when I was in Maastricht. Here we can almost say it is the mouth of the river. Rotterdam began to develop as a port when the Maas connected with the North sea. At the same time it developed as a city. Over the years Rotterdam became an important port and industrial city. During Second World War it was heavily bombed and most of the city was destroyed. The Old Harbor lies right on the border of that massive destruction. Here stands almost the only historic house that miraculously survived the bombing. This is the Witte Huis. The style of this building is Art Nouveau. It was actually a pioneer in using reinforced concrete, dating back to the late 1800s. It’s wild to think it’s widely regarded as one of Europe’s very first skyscrapers. Its height is exactly 43 meters, which was really extraordinary for Europe at the end of the nineteenth century.
After the Second World War the city began to develop in a completely new way. The authorities made a rather unusual decision. They decided to design a completely new one instead of rebuilding the old city. As a result Rotterdam became a real platform for experimental architecture. Everything started after the war.There were many experiments in modernism here naturally. These experiments are still continuing today or new architectural forms keep appearing.
Right next to the Old Harbor is one of the early experimental projects known as the Kubuswoningen or Cube houses. The architect was Piet Blom. In fact his idea was not simply to create houses with such unusual geometry. He wanted the whole thing to feel like a forest. To achieve that, he placed each cube onto a hexagonal base and tucked a staircase inside to lead you up into the living space. The complex looks a little like a bridge over the road.. Despite its completely unusual cube form placed on one corner, the architects tried to create comfortable living conditions inside.
You can visit one of the cubes btw. There is a small museum inside. In my opinion the museum itself is not particularly valuable. But it allows you to understand how it feels to be inside such a volume. It is also quite a unique opportunity. Because entering historical experimental architecture like this is usally not easy unless you know someone who lives there.
The house has three levels. And the largest one usually includes the living room, dining room or kitchen. The second level holds the bedrooms. The third level is a bright attic space with views of Rotterdam and its surrounding architectural structures.
It is also worth paying attention to another tower nearby, often called the Black Tower. Or simply the Pencil building. Next to the Cube houses stands a tower that locals call the Pencil because of its shape. The windows are quite unusual. They are arched but inverted. This produces a strong visual effect. It also reminds me of the tip of a sharpened pencil, where similar arches appear. Perhaps the architect was inspired by exactly this image. In any case it is another architectural experiment, because we are not used to seeing arches in this orientation.
Markthal is an astonishing project that combines several functions at once. First it is an indoor market. Second the market is covered by a huge horseshoe-shaped structure that contains more than 200 residential apartments. And there are underground shopping levels beneath it. In the main hall there is essentially a food court with more than 50 different shops and cafés where you can try local specialties as well as international cuisine.
The interior of the horseshoe structure is decorated in a very interesting way. It features a gigantic 11000 square meter artwork called the Horn of Plenty. The authors of this abundance of function, architecture or aesthetics are the MVRDV studio a famous Dutch architectural firm.
From there we moved to Museum park, which is both a cluster of Rotterdam’s museums and an architectural park. Our visit there began with the Sonneveld house. Sonneveld was the owner of the Van Nelle coffee factory. Or he commissioned this beautiful house as an exceptional example of functionalism or more precisely the Dutch branch of the New Building movement.
Everything is very simple here. Today the house is managed by the Nieuwe Instituut, which is essentially the main architectural archive and platform of the Netherlands.
I should say that the Sonneveld House has been very well restored. The interiors are almost perfectly original. It is a very bright house or it naturally contains all the typical features of this architecture. Wide ribbon windows, a flat roof, open plans or an interesting spatial organization.
The first floor contains technical rooms and servant's quarters. The second floor includes the living room, salon, the owner’s study, the dining room or the main kitchen. In houses like this there was always a secondary kitchen where most of the cooking took place. There was even a staircase leading directly from the garage to this kitchen, so supplies could be brought in easily, prepared or served to the owners and their guests.
The third floor contains private rooms. Two bedrooms for the daughters and the master bedroom. An interesting detail is that the daughters shared a bathroom. But each had direct access to it from her own room. Above this level there is access to the flat roof terrace, where you can enjoy the view of the beautiful park.
The building of the Nieuwe instituut itself was constructed in 1993 according to a design by architect Jo Coenen. The institution in its current form was created in 2013 through the merger of the architecture institute, the design foundation or the digital culture center. Now all three organizations operate under one roof. The roof itself is quite interesting, combining concrete, glass or metal. Around the building there are open spaces and reflecting ponds. Inside there are very interesting spatial volumes where exhibitions are held.
There were three exhibitions when I visited. One was devoted to the theme of childhood and children’s fears about the future. The second, titled Dutch More or Less explored Dutch identity, especially design identity. Perhaps the most interesting exhibition was dedicated to fungi and their surprisingly useful ability to break down and decompose materials on our planet. I liked it very much. Everything looked as impressive as the building itself.
Across the park stands one of the newest icons on Rotterdam’s architectural map. The depot of the Boijmans Van Beuningen museum. It is an art museum storage facility and essentially an open depot. In that sense it is a unique institution, because visitors can actually see how artworks are stored.
The structure looks like a massive 60 meter mirrored bowl. There’s this lush open-air terrace at the top. And the view from up there is cool. With its reflective surface and natural elements, the building integrates into the surrounding landscape very effectively. MVRDV studio designed this one as well.
Rotterdam is famous for modern architecture. And one notable studio is Rem Koolhaas’s OMA. In front of us was the Kunsthal, the city’s modern art museum. It is an example of late modernism and probably an early work by Koolhaas. It is a very unusual building in terms of volumes and materials. Here we again see glass and metal in many different forms, both open and hidden spaces, layered structures or a very distinctive stone cladding. At the center a tower gives a nod to industrial architecture. The way it blends into the surroundings is classic Koolhaas.
We headed to the Erasmus bridge. Or The Swan as the locals call it. It’s a huge structure that pays tribute to the famous Dutch humanist, Erasmus.
Right across the Maas, you can’t miss De Rotterdam, another Rem Koolhaas creation. It’s basically a city within a city, made up of three towers of stacked blocks that all sit on a shared six-story base.
By the bridge on this side of the river stands a memorial for the Dutch merchant fleet sailors who died during the Second World War. It’s both moving and poetic.
I really loved the city of Rotterdam. It is unusual. It actually felt a lot like Singapore to me, super modern and totally one-of-a-kind. I’m definitely coming back. I can’t recommend this place enough, if you're looking for somewhere new to explore. It really leaves an impression.