Rf. 4 – Rotterdam – IAR-Andreu León

The neetherlands is a beautiful country with great architecture, how do I know this? Well, last summer I went there to visit my sister and I was shocked by one specific city, Rotterdam.

The first thing I saw was the Rotterdam Central Station and I was quite impressed because of its prominent shape. I expected a usual station and not this outstanding image, what I like the most about it is that the angular shape is made on purpose pointing to the city centre as a way of helping visitors.

The next thing we saw was De Rotterdam. We didn’t really see them from very close but there was no need because they are astonishing even from the distance. When I saw them I realized why this city is called the “vertical city”. These three towers interconnected to each other reach a height of 150 meters making them visible from almost any point of the river that crosses Rotterdam.

Google earth De Ro t terdam

After this we went to my sister’s apartment and spent the rest of the day with her in her house.

The second day we decided to visit the “Markthal Rotterdam” which is a very famous market because of its unusual covered shape. I actually found it very curious, it wasn’t my favourite building of the day but I thought it was an interesting different approach to how markets are built.

We had lunch there and then we decided to visit the Cube houses, a complex group of cubic-shaped houses that stand out not only because of their strange shape but because of their yellow colour. These were built in the early 1980s by Piet Blom and try to look like a quirky architectural gem. These Cube Houses consist of 38 homes and a hostel.

This was all the architecture we were able to visit in this short trip but, when I came back, I investigated a bit more about Roterdam’s architecture and I felt like I couldn’t show these two phenomenal buildings: the Timmerhuis and the Pauluskerk.