EuroTripping – Rotterdam Modern Architecture

While staying a few nights in Antwerp during our European road trip last summer, we decided to drive up to Rotterdam to spend a day exploring parts of the city.

We parked our EV near Rotterdam Centraal train station and began our tour by wandering down towards the Markthall and the famous blocky yellow structures of the Kubus Woningen. Next, we crossed the Willemsbrug and Koninginnebrug bridges to find our way to Wilhelminakade and the newly built-up Kop van Zuid neighborhood on the south bank of the Nieuwe Maas river.

We then crossed over the Rijnhavenbrug pedestrian bridge to try and find some chow at Fenix Food Factory in the Katendrecht neighborhood, which was the furthest away point of our exploration. To make our way back to the car, we headed over the Erasmusbrug and through some neighbourhoods and checked out some of the sculptures along Westersingel canal.

Today’s post features some of the modern architecture we saw as we explored the city of Rotterdam last July.


The KPN Tower in Koi van Zuid (designed by Renzo Piano)

The Cooltoren, an apartment tower, by V8 Architects

The Blaaktoren, aka Het Potlood (the pencil), designed by Piet Blom

Modernised buildings as part of the Compagnie Kop van Zuid by Kollhoff & Pols

The wedge-shaped Wilemswerf, designed by Wim Quist

The Markthal, by the firm MVRDV, is shaped in a horseshoe-type arch

The Weenatoren office and residential tower, designed by Klunder Architecten

De Rotterdam, the huge office-aparment-hotel complex, designed by OMA and developed by Edge

The Maastoren, the second tallest building in the Netherlands, designed by Dam & Partners Architecten

The Fenix Food Factory building, with retail below and residences above, was designed by Mei Architects

Those famous cube houses (Kubus Woningen), designed by Piet Blom as a “city forest”

A facade of the New Luxor Theatre by BOLLES+WILSON

De Calypso residential buildings by Alsop Architects

Las Palmas, originally designed by Van den Broek & Bakema in the 50s, was recently renovated by Benthem Crouwel Architects

The Compagnie Kop van Zuid by Kollhoff & Pols in color

Large yellow pipes drew my attention to this otherwise nondescript building

Another look up at a few of the Cube Houses

The futuristic Pauluskerk by Will Alsopp

Another look at Het Potlood, this time in color

A lookup at De Rotterdam

De Brug, Unilever headquarters, designed by JHK Architects

A tower in the Gebouw Delft’s Poort complex, by Abe Bonnema

Yes, another look at De Rotterdam in BnW

A final look at the KPN Tower

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