Makers Dis­trict

The Maker­’s Dis­trict in Rot­ter­dam is a liv­ing example of urb­an trans­form­a­tion, blend­ing the city’s indus­tri­al leg­acy with cre­at­ive innov­a­tion. The har­bour of Rot­ter­dam moved sev­er­al times through­out the cen­tur­ies, look­ing for places which could accom­mod­ate its growth as well as the increas­ing size of ships. In the 1930s, new har­bour exten­sions were cre­ated on the north­ern shore in the west of the city. Most of the area served as fruit har­bour, where e.g. the orange juice sup­ply for the entire European hin­ter­land used to be trans­shipped. In recent years, these har­bour activ­it­ies have star­ted to move even fur­ther west, closer to the North Sea. The Mer­we- and Vier­havens area is gradu­ally chan­ging its char­ac­ter, trans­form­ing from har­bour to cre­at­ive breed­ing ground. Many cre­at­ive com­pan­ies have settled in former har­bour build­ings. The muni­cip­al­ity pro­motes this devel­op­ment and facil­it­ates exper­i­ment­al pro­jects in the area, which has become known as the Makers District. 

On this tour, we will explore a har­bour area in full trans­ition, hous­ing port func­tions as well as maker spaces, cre­at­ive com­pan­ies and urb­an garden­ing pro­jects. Learn about the area’s his­tor­ic­al sig­ni­fic­ance and vis­it adapt­ive reuse projects.

Tour High­lights: Makers District

  • Europoint Towers (SOM, 1975 / Dieder­en Dir­rix, 2018): Trans­form­a­tion of three 1970s office towers into con­tem­por­ary housing

  • Dak­park (Sant en Co, 2014): Multi-pur­pose urb­an pro­ject that com­bines a shop­ping cen­ter, green roof, and dike

  • HAKA Fact­ory Build­ing (H.F. Mer­tens, 1932 / WDJA, 2018)

  • Keile­pand (M. Brink­man, 1922 / Group A, 2016): Former ware­house now serving as office and exhib­i­tion space for Rotterdam’s grow­ing cre­at­ive sector

  • Food Garden M4H (Lola Landscape)
  • Auc­tion house Cit­rus­veil­ing (H. Maaskant, 1955)
  • Float­ing Farm (Gold­smith Com­pany, 2020): World’s first float­ing dairy farm, show­cas­ing innov­at­ive approaches to food pro­duc­tion and sus­tain­able urb­an living

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