Rotterdam #2...

Rotterdam is a city of contrasts. Amidst the high rise buildings there will be a quiet square and a survivor of the bombing...

Laurenskerk

17C statue of Erasmus outside Laurenskerk.
Dutch parents tell their children that Erasmus turns a new page every day :-)

Het Witte Haus - first Dutch 'skyscraper'

Everywhere there are public sculptures...

Naum Gabo 1957

Picasso outside  Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen 

Very poignant - war-related

Outside the Kunsthal

And always the maritime presence...

Maritime museum

From the Willemsbrug

I like the contrasts. I like the new juxtaposed with the old. There is little consistency in the Rotterdam architecture - but there is an energy and vibrancy.

Rotterdam...

I don't know how to begin to describe this city. I have just spent two days tramping its streets. Merel, who works in Rotterdam, did not include it on her list of places I might enjoy visiting. But knowing of Rotterdam's history - the almost total destruction of the port and much of the city in WW2 - I very much wanted to see it. 


Well, architecturally it is as diverse as its inhabitants. Near the Central Station there is this - um - building that reminds me of east Berlin - sort of soviet -style, post-war, communist brutalism. It covers a whole block - it is HUGE. (Note the bikes!). 

Other, smaller, similar-style buildings - presumably the first of the post-war rebuild - are much in evidence.


Then, on the other side of the Central Station, there is this...

and further down the road, this, under construction...

and closer to the waterfront, this (very famous)...

I went inside one of these residential cubes. I couldn't live there. Total claustrophobia.


And so it goes on...

Very difficult to capture these big, new buildings in a photo. The sheer scale is lost. However, this is one 'face' of Rotterdam. Grand, awe-inspiring, ugly ... take your pick. Never less than challenging.


I'll do other 'faces' of Rotterdam in successive posts...