Rotterdam City Centre

Rot­ter­dam is a har­bour city with rough charm and a sparkling sky­line. The city first gained impor­tance in the 19th cen­tu­ry, when its har­bour grew expo­nen­tial­ly with­in just a few decades. In World War II, the city cen­tre of Rot­ter­dam was com­plete­ly destroyed. What remained was a city with­out a heart, in whose fab­ric the fire bound­ary of 1940 is still vis­i­ble today. After the war, city plan­ners saw the result­ing tab­u­la rasa as a chance to real­ize a mod­ernist city cen­ter with a rad­i­cal sep­a­ra­tion of func­tions. In recent years, the city has attract­ed inter­na­tion­al atten­tion, due to its part­ly still unused urban poten­tial and to its icon­ic new build­ings. The city cen­tre of Rot­ter­dam fea­tures mod­ernist clas­sics as well as recent inter­ven­tions by archi­tects like MVRDV and OMA.

Let one of our Guid­ing Archi­tects show you the city cen­tre from an archi­tec­t’s per­spec­tive. We’ll explain about post-war urban plan­ning, den­si­fi­ca­tion and cur­rent challenges.

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Programme: Rotterdam City Centre

  • Expla­na­tions about urban devel­op­ment, post-war plan­ning, recent interventions

  • Cen­tral Sta­tion (Team CS, 2013)

  • Res­i­den­tial den­si­fi­ca­tion projects in the city centre

  • Shop­ping street Lijn­baan (Van den Broek en Bake­ma, 1948) and Bijenko­rf depart­ment store (Mar­cel Breuer, 1957)
  • Hous­ing and office build­ing Tim­mer­huis (OMA, 2015)
  • Cube Hous­es (Piet Blom, 1984)
  • Mar­ket Hall (MVRDV, 2013)
  • Wijn­havenei­land

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