Rotterdam: Architecture’s City of the Future
I came to Rotterdam to see the world-famous jewel of post-modern architecture and innovation myself. For its experimental buildings and urban foundations have a fiction-sounding backstory.
During the second world war, poised to invade, the Germans sent a message: you have 24 hours to surrender or we’ll destroy your city. Dubious of the ultimatum’s veracity, the proudly defiant, hitherto world conquering Dutch imperialists responded. Never.
But with the midnight deadline fast approaching, the city lost its nerve. Rotterdam dispatched a formal message of surrender — only they were too late. German bombers were already in the skies. Luftwaffe approaching from the north were unable to see the surrender smoke flares. A few hours and one week-long inferno later, Southern Holland’s strategically located port was decimated.
In the same way the Parisians are often judged for their appeasement of the Nazis — I feel sympathy for the predicament of the Dutch. You may think the distinction of being the only city in World War II to both surrender and be destroyed would be a source of shame, but the Rotterdamians responded remarkably.
After the war, plans were drafted to reconstruct the city by way of its medieval layout. But a radical decision was made to neglect the historical foundations entirely. Before the destruction, Rotterdam struggled with overcrowding, ghettos, and a number of other major urban issues. Without the iconic facades like the Hague or Amsterdam there was little historical architecture to consider. A perfect environment for experimentation.
I trudged thirty minutes from the heart of the city to its single surviving historic district of Delfshaven — quite a trek for such a concentrated, walkable city (let alone a tiny country!) — and arrived to find a few stepped-gable Gothic building sandwiched between a boxy apartment complex.
Rather than a present-day Chernobyl, Rotterdam is a testament to resilience and hope. Its skeleton was rebuilt into a virtually entirely modern city, defined by gravity-defying skyscrapers, floating architecture, 3-D printed designs, smog vacuum cleaners, cubist office parks, avante garde strip malls, and. So. Much. Color!
Rotterdam is truly a masterpiece. Spend 2 hours, a day, a week, a lifetime. However long you can. Architecture aside, it’s an open-air gallery of inspiration and (I would argue) Europe’s most beautiful modern city.
