The his­tor­ic centre of Rotterdam was com­pletely des­troyed in World War II and rebuilt after the war, based on a mod­ern­ist urb­an plan.

After the war, Cor­nel­is van Traa designed the fam­ous Basic Plan for the Recon­struc­tion of Rotterdam. The entire city centre was con­struc­ted accord­ing to this two-dimen­sion­al urb­an plan.

At the time, author­it­ies and plan­ners were both con­vinced that Rotterdam needed a fresh start — also in archi­tec­tur­al terms. This approach turned the city into the Dutch cap­it­al of post-war mod­ern­ism, fea­tur­ing many remark­able build­ings from the 1950s and 1960s. In recent years, these high­lights of post-war archi­tec­ture get more and more recog­ni­tion. Since 1999, 26 of them are lis­ted as nation­al her­it­age sites, while oth­ers have been integ­rated into new devel­op­ments.