[Ronald]

A few summertime shots from my hometown, which has been dubbed 'City of Architecture' for the year 2007, to emphasize the fact that the city is home to an unusual amount of post-war experimental architecture.

Welcome to:

Around subway station 'Eendrachtsplein'.

The westersingel, Rotterdam's version of Amsterdam's channels.

This used to be a harbour. This building, formerly used for storage of goods, has been converted into lofts.

The Nautical College.

The interior of the college was designed like the interior of a ship.

View from the top (14th floor):

The southern banks of the river Maas.

City Centre

Schiemond, a neighbourhood with lots of social problems. To improve social cohesion in the neighbourhood, bike and walkingtrails will be created along the water, aswell as a soccerfield. On top of the midrises along the waterfront, upscale penthouses will be built to attract higher incomes to the neighbourhood.

More construction.

In the city centre: Shopping galleries.

The World Trade Center. The purple stripe was added to the building in light of the city's title as 'City of Architecture'.

Secured bike parking near subway/tram/ and railway station 'Blaak'.

The Cube houses.

View from the attic.

Looks like this tram is about to crash into the building!

View of the cubes, the Williamsbridge and the city's first highrise (The White House, built in 1895) from the adjacent library.

It won't be long before the view of the Erasmusbridge from the library is blocked by the new residential highrise 'The Red Apple'.

City centre and St. Laurens church, seen from the library.

The college of arts!

Construction on 'The Red Apple' has begun.

Maersk's office.

Where we'll be heading: the southern bank of the river.

Subway station 'Wilhelminaplein' on the southern bank.

The 'Toren op Zuid', with thousands of little green lights. Simply Dan's favorite building of the city, if I recall correctly.

Court of Justice.

Cruiseship 'The Rotterdam' at it's home base.

More record-breaking highrises coming soon!

City centre seen from the south.

More urban renewal. This too used to be a harbour as recently as 2 decades ago.

These buildings used to be used for storage of goods, today you can find restaurants, bars and art galleries along the quay.

Around Central Station.

This is pretty much the centre's core: Schouwburgplein.

West 8's cranes

Coffee break.

the Netherlands Institute of Architecture.

The garden of the NAI.

A few shots of an expo on the future of the city at the city's main Art Gallery.

New lightrail network that's supposed to integrate the metro area of The Hague with that of Rotterdam.

The End.

 

[JasonParis]

Wow, that brought back some memories from last year! Great pics as always!

Rotterdam is one of the few European cities that (much like Toronto) is continually changing.

 

[smuncky]

thats an amazing city! i never knew it had so much going on in terms of architecture.

if i ever get a chance to go to europe, this is definitely going to be one of my stops.

thx for the great photos!

 

[Canuck]

I'm trying to convince the fiancee that if/when we do Europe, to make a stop here.

 

[Bonnie]

Hey Roon

It was a great day. The pic's are great.
And love to show you Nijmegen.
You are definetely a Hellse Dude

 

[Zephyr]

Piet Blom - The architect of Rotterdam Cube Houses and his role in the Toronto unitri

A couple of your photographs particularly attracted my attention – the ones of the cube house or kubuswoningen in Rotterdam. Several of these houses now stand over what was once part of the Blaak River. The architect of the cube house was a somewhat reclusive man named Piet Blom, who died a few years ago.

I remember some of the story about how he got the idea, and there is also an interesting Toronto connection as well.

Piet Blom’s first attempt at the cube house was to the east of Rotterdam, in the tiny rural town of Helmond. Reputedly, a farmer (some say a local politico) in a throwaway line suggested that Blom house the people in Helmond in tree houses. Little did he know that this would lead Blom to build such structures, not literally in trees, but rather in a kind of cubist vision of tree houses. But Blom was not happy with the final result, and a couple years later, when he was asked to essentially build this form again in Rotterdam, he refined the physical structure, but mostly in the interior design.

Now known as Helmond's "Theater ’t Speelhuis" and residences

There is in Toronto, close to the Adelaide overpass on Sumach, a structure known as the "Cube House" or "Cube Building". In reality it is not one cube for the home but three joined together. I had seen the Rotterdam version a ways back, and was aware of this Canadian version also, but for some reason I compartmentalized them somewhere in my mind, until I saw these photos.

Below - Top or third floor of Home (left); Middle or second floor bedroom (centre); same floor but office (right)

Turns out that a local architect, Ben Kutner, and partner Jeff Brown, managed to get a licence to build their version of the Blom design. This was suppose to be their demo model for future customers of “unitri” – the name for both their structure and newly formed company. Today, and I don’t know why, only architect Clive Levitt references the "Cube Building" on his Levitt Architects website. This first and only unitri has had only one person live in it – Ben Kutner himself. Abandoned between three roads in a triangular patch, it has become a de facto billboard.

 

[ProjectEnd]

Didn't Jackie Chan have a movie somehow involving these things? Am I remembering this correctly?

 

[Ronald]

^^ Yes you are, Jackie Chan slides down the slope of the Maersk building in the movie "Who Am I".

 

[JasonParis]

I believe this is the building he slides down...