Visiting architecture in Rotterdam

"ROTTERDAM HAS BECOME A CITY OF EXPERIMENTATION. IT HAS A DIRECTNESS AND VITALITY WHICH SEEMS MORE NEW WORLD THAN OLD." Francine Houben, Mecanoo

Rotterdam attracts a great deal of international interest as a city of architecture. A few square kilometres of the city centre offers a complete overview of what the 20th century has produced in terms of modern architecture.

Appealing examples of pre-war architecture include the Van Nelle Factory and the Huis Sonneveld with it’s restored unique interior.	photo by Fas Keuzenkamp, via Mediabank Rotterdam
The innovative and adventurous period after WWII is expressed in such structures as the Groothandelsgebouw, the Cube houses, the Kunsthal, the Luxor Theatre and the Erasmus Bridge.
More recently we’ve seen the large scale urban (re)development of a former harbour area on the South of the river Maas, but also north of the river, in the Lloydkwartier, with a focus on audiovisual and creative companies.
And right in the middle of the old maritime quarter, a new housing highrise Red Apple by KCAP was completed.
Future developments are the new City Hall by OMA, freshly- announced winner of the competition.
And the large ‘Rotterdam Complex’ on the south bank of the river Maas will finally be build – after 12 years on the shelve.

All plans can be seen at the City Information Centre (CIC), where the large model of the Rotterdam city centre, shows what is planned for the coming years.

Besides from these more permanent attractions, read this next blogpost with an overview of other architecture related activities that take place around the same time as the MIMOA EVENT 09.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 24th, 2009 at 9:20 pm and is filed under MIMOA EVENT 09, Projects. You can follow any replies to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.