Page 3 of 6
Rotterdam, Netherlands
All my life is a chemical dream
It’s not that all that far from Ghent to Rotterdam, but it still takes two trains and two hours, including a half hour layover at Antwerp. And then once you get to Rotterdam Centraal, you’re still four stops and 15 minutes away from Wilhelminaplein and here, de Rotterdam and the Erasmus Bridge.
This is de Rotterdam, a building designed by local hero architect Rem Koolhaas in his best, delirious New York style. The building is a constantly shifting tower with gaps and volumes in all sorts of unexpected places. And when I found out that there was a hotel inside de Rotterdam, you know that I decided I just had to stay there. The nhow Rotterdam Hotel advertises itself as “art, architecture and one hell of a view” and they really mean it. The view over the spectacular Erasmus Bridge (designed by local hero architect Ben van Berkel of UN Studio) needs to be seen to be believed (more about that later). Until then, here are a few pictures outside and in between de Rotterdam, letting you experience the constantly shifting tower and all those gaps and volumes in all sorts of unexpected places that you were hoping for all this time.
I had been to Rotterdam once before and back then I wrote “unlike other cities across Europe which felt the need to carefully replace their historic hearts, Rotterdam decided to start over and create something a little different.” In that 2006 trip, Rotterdam was really just a glorified stop over, I had no real plans or agenda other than to wander from the railway station and see what I could see in whatever time I thought I had before catching a train to Utrecht. But now, eleven years later, it was finally time to do right by Rotterdam, one of the more architecturally interesting cities you could ever hope to see.
What makes Rotterdam interesting is that it really feels like a place where (architecturally) anything is possible. There are a lot of projects that really take risks, and, like all risks, not everything pays off. Still, even when you’re looking at something that probably should have never been designed or built in the first place, there is so much to admire about how much of a chance the architects and owners took in the first place. And when these kind of projects actually work, they can be pretty spectacular.
The Cube Houses in Rotterdam date back to 1977 and were designed by Piet Bloom. Each house is a great big yellow cube rotated around on a brick pier to look like an abstracted tree, and together, even in this weirdly distorted constructed panorama, it kind of works.
Not only can you walk around and take pictures of the Cube Houses, but for only €5, you can actually go inside one. The experience is pretty awesome and very confusing. In order to get each house to rotate 45 degrees so it looks like a tree, there are a lot of architectural gymnastics going on inside that, while efficient, still create a lot of uncomfortable spaces at times. The best analogy I can think of is that it probably feels a lot like living in a space station, if that makes sense.
The other landmark that I wanted to feature from this trip to Rotterdam is the Markthal (or Market Hall) by local hero architects MVRDV. It is pretty much what you think it is, a giant covered, enclosed market hall, except that once inside it feels kind of like you’re in a great big cave with pictures of food on all of the walls. It’s a pretty spectacular space and by itself could be reason enough to visit Rotterdam.
I did more in Rotterdam than sit in my hotel room at de Rotterdam, get confused in a cube house and take pictures at the Markthal. I did a few, fairly long self guided architectural walking tours and made a return visit to the NAI, the Netherlands Architecture Museum which is now called Het Nieuwe Instituut, or the New Institute. And right out front of that, a new reason to visit Rotterdam emerged. It’s called the Collecyiegebouw and it’s designed by local hero architects MVRDV, the same architects who designed the Markthal. This new building looks like a giant reflective cup with a forest of trees on its roof, and if the renderings are to be believed, it will definitely be a reason enough to visit Rotterdam in another four years or so.
We’re going to end our one day, one night visit to Rotterdam with two pictures of the same thing, the view from my 19th floor at the nhow hotel at de Rotterdam. The first picture shows the creeping shadows of de Rotterdam chasing the bridge, while the second photo shows the bridge and the city as night finally fell. Art, architecture and one hell of a view indeed.
