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.