Rotterdam intrigued me after I saw a series of photos from a visit there by my friends Jason and Dan. It seemed full of rather odd buildings, and I wondered how Holland's second city pulled it all together. When I found out that in 2007 they were having an architectural festival, I realized I needed to go. I convinced Marcy to go with me, based on the idea that we could compare Rotterdam's over the top architecture with Brugge's medieval streets. That worked out pretty well, though the many stops we made in between diluted the effect somewhat.
Rotterdam Photo List (Total 485 Photos)
Click bolded headers below to view, or click "just the best" for quick tour
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Rotterdam's Top 40 (240 photos) - Marcy and I bought a pamphlet that purported to show Rotterdam's top 40 buildings. They were numbered in order according to their date, and they were mostly open to the public as part of the architectural festival. Over two days, in a frenzied rush, we visited them all, celebrating with a drink by the water after our successful jaunt. I was very appreciative of how well organized this was: each building had some purple colour attached to it somewhere to indicate that it was part of the festival, and the pamphlet had a small diagram of each. These two things were invaluable in locating the buildings. These photos are in order, then, by the number they had in the pamphlet, and not at all in the order we actually found them.
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Other buildings (98 photos) - These buildings, old and new, did not make the Top 40 list. Rotterdam is discerning enough about its architecture, that in many cities these would be the cream of the cream, but I guess in Rotterdam they had to make way for even more distinguished buildings. Some of these are pretty damn cool.
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Rotterdam Views (137 photos) - In these photos, the emphasis is less on buildings and more on general views of the city. Includes cafes, parks, street views, photos of Marcy and I, artworks, and water views.
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Transit shots (10 photos) - A few photos of trams and subways.
