In the 1920s and 30s, numer­ous build­ings were cre­ated in Rot­ter­dam that are now con­sidered mod­ern clas­sics: factor­ies, hous­ing areas and indus­tri­al­ists’ vil­las, mostly in the inter­na­tion­al style. The most press­ing issue, how­ever, was work­ers’ hous­ing, and there­fore pro­gress­ive archi­tects developed new hous­ing typo­lo­gies for the work­ing classes. De Kief­hoek is a vil­lage-like neigh­bour­hood that was built on an incred­ibly low budget, but was archi­tec­tur­ally ground­break­ing. It lies in the south of Rot­ter­dam, which is con­nec­ted to the north­ern shore via the Maas­tun­nel, opened in 1941. On the oth­er side, In the work­ers’ quarter of Span­gen there are res­id­en­tial build­ings in vari­ous stages of redevel­op­ment, includ­ing the award-win­ning Jus­tus van Effen­block. After years of neg­lect, it was ren­ov­ated in an exem­plary man­ner a few years ago.