The bombing by Luftwaffe planes of the second largest city in the Netherlands began on May 10, 1940. Soon, on May 14, a tragic event took place, which in the history of the Second World War was called the "Rotterdam Blitz". About 97 tons of bombs were dropped on the city in a quarter of an hour, as a result, 850 people died and the central part of Rotterdam with an area of approximately 2,5 square meters was destroyed. km, leaving about 80 people, 000% of the city's population, homeless.
This is what the center of Rotterdam looked like after the bombing in 1940, when the site was cleared of ruins for the future. The only dominant feature is the Sint-Laurenskerk tower
In total, 25 houses, 479 department stores, 31 small shops, 2 factories, 320 workshops, 31 warehouses, 1 offices, 319 banks, 675 consulates, 1 schools, 437 church hospitals, 13 state hospitals, 19 state institutions, were destroyed. 69 train stations, 13 newspaper offices, 14 museums, 14 cafes and restaurants, 4 party halls, 4 cinemas, 2 theaters and 517 commercial buildings. Since 22, on the streets of modern Rotterdam, marks of the fire border of the destroyed center have appeared, which, like scars on the city fabric, remind of the tragedy that the city and its inhabitants suffered during the Second World War.
About 97 tons of bombs were dropped on the city in a quarter of an hour, as a result, 850 people died and the central part of Rotterdam with an area of approximately 2,5 square meters was destroyed. km
The day after the bombing, having assessed the situation and received an ultimatum from Germany about the possible destruction of Utrecht, the Netherlands capitulated. And a few days later, on May 18, 1940, the city council of Rotterdam commissioned the architect Willem Gerrit Witteven (1891–1979) to develop a new city plan. Since 1947, this date has been celebrated as Construction Day.
A pile of stones is all that remains of the Sint-Laurenskerk. Rotterdam, 1940
At that time, various events were held: the first piles of new buildings were driven into the ground, monuments, exhibitions were opened, lectures were held, thematic publications were presented, etc. In the postwar years, two magazines were published that were entirely devoted to the reconstruction of Rotterdam: "Rotterdam Builds!" and The City on the Maas. Jubilee dates — ten and twenty years of reconstruction — were marked by separate publications.
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Many photographers were commissioned to film the new Rotterdam for subsequent albums, including Cas Orthuis, Ed van Wijk, Kees Molkenbuhr and Fritz Rotgans. The city also commissioned films about the reconstruction, including "And yet... Rotterdam!" and "Hold on!". The city archive commissioned artists to capture the construction works, and photographer Jan Rouvers to photograph the city.
Poster for the exhibition Rotterdam Straks ("Rotterdam in the near future"), 1947, which presented the basic plan of reconstruction. © Rotterdam City Archives
On May 18, 1940, the city council of Rotterdam commissioned the architect Willem Gerrit Witteven to develop a new city plan. Since 1947, this date has been celebrated as Construction Day
Placing a memorial stone in the new shopping center in Hoogvlit on Construction Day, 1960. © Rotterdam City Archives
Bus stop that served reconstruction tours for those willing to see with their own eyes how the construction is going. © Rotterdam City Archives
Reconstruction tour poster depicting a residential area in Groningen, 1956. ©Rotterdam City Archives
The last Construction Day was held in 1970, when the reconstruction was finally completed. Since 1976, the City Center Day has been held every year until this date. In addition to the Construction Day, there were other initiatives to popularize the city's recovery. Thus, since the spring of 1946, the so-called reconstruction bus tours were organized for those willing to see with their own eyes how the construction is going. The route ran through the entire city and covered a distance of 31 km.
Since 1956, in connection with the great interest of foreign tourists, the city tourist office "BBV" organized a separate tour for them. Closer to 1957, the interest of the people of Rotterdam in tours began to fade. It is assumed that this was due to the fact that relatively little had changed in the city and its surroundings during that year. In 1960, the route was changed, and the trip no longer passed through the center: attention switched to the expansion of the left bank of the Meuse.
Reconstruction plan and base plan
The recovery of the Netherlands after the Second World War, which entered the history of urban design under the term "reconstruction", covered the period from 1945 to 1968. Rotterdam suffered the most damage and therefore changed more radically than the rest of the Dutch cities. The reconstruction plan, developed by Witteven and his followers, envisaged the modernization of the city, and not its reconstruction according to the former scheme.
As the architectural critic and writer Reinder Blijstra (1952–1901) wrote in Het Vrije Volk in 1975, "Rotterdam will be spacious, it will have the elegance of a metropolis: fast traffic, wide boulevards, tall buildings will create a sense of bustle that is harmoniously combined with modern life ... Rotterdam will be our city, the city of people of the XNUMXth century." Pre-war Rotterdam did not differ in beauty and comfort, so it was decided to clear the center of the ruins in order to create a tabula rasa and apply new ideas regarding functional planning.
Witteven, the architect of the new Rotterdam, works on a design sketch, June 1940.
Witteven's plan from December 1941. © Rotterdam City Archives
The reconstruction plan developed by Witteven and his followers envisaged the modernization of the city, and not its reconstruction according to the former scheme
Despite the fact that during the military occupation, which lasted until May 5, 1945, the restoration work itself did not take place, the preparatory stage for the future construction - the clearing of rubble and the removal of garbage - began immediately and lasted until November 1940. Therefore, Witteven and a team of specialists had to quickly decide which of the few surviving buildings should be preserved. They became the gates of the Delftse Poort (1764), the Schielandshuis palace (1665) and the Laurenskerk tower (1525), but not the church itself.
The speed of the response and the development of the reconstruction plan were prompted in part by the fear that any delay might allow the Nazis to take reconstruction into their own hands. The greatest fear was caused by the specter of the "Great German Port", which Rotterdam could turn into according to the plan of Albert Speer, then Hitler's personal architect and later the Reich Minister of War Industry.
Delftse Poort (1764) on a postcard of the early 1938th century. In 1939, the city council accepted Witteven's proposal to relocate the Delft Gate. In February-May 1940, the gate was carefully dismantled and moved. But during the bombing of the city in May 1941, the work was only half done. Some of the preserved elements were damaged, so in XNUMX it was decided not to complete the reconstruction and to demolish the part that had already been assembled
Symbolic reproduction of the Delft Gate by the artist Cor Kraat, 1988-95, Rotterdam
The Schielandshuis Palace (1665), which housed the Rotterdam Museum from 1986 to 2016, and then became a hotel
Start of Laurenskerk reconstruction, 1952. Source: alondoninheritance.com
In his plan, developed in a few weeks, Witteven tried to find a solution to the contemporary problems of the city and to ensure better circulation of traffic on wide boulevards, a higher aesthetic quality of buildings, cleaning of urban slums around the Gudsesingel district. From an urban design point of view, he adhered to perimeter blocks and monumental streetscapes.
The architectural design was traditional: residential buildings and farm buildings with a gable roof. In September 1940, Witteven presented his proposals to a government commissioner, who noted that the plan did not meet the needs of a city of almost a million inhabitants. Nevertheless, the reconstruction scheme was officially adopted in 1941 and presented in the Bojmans-van Benningen Museum in October of the same year.
Witteven tried to find a solution to the contemporary problems of the city and to ensure better circulation of traffic on wide boulevards
After clearing the rubble and demolishing the buildings that could not be restored, temporary residential and commercial buildings were erected. However, some construction works were still carried out. Those projects that were under construction at the start of the war, such as the Blijdorp Zoo and the Meuse Tunnel, were completed, except for the Rotterdamsche Bank on the central Kulsingel Street, which remained unfinished.
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The only project built during the war was the first phase of the Wereldhaven in Gudsesingel, a residential block designed by Jan Wills consisting of 5-6 storey brick buildings with courtyards and shops on the first floors. From July 1942 until the end of the war, all construction in Rotterdam was stopped, and cereals were grown on vacant plots.
Laying of the first pile of the Wereldhaven residential complex, Rotterdam, April 15, 1941
One of the courtyards of Wereldhaven, 1951. © Rotterdam City Archives
Leopoldstraat photographed from the houses on Gudsesingel, 1946. © Rotterdam City Archives
Over the following years, the idea of rebuilding the city changed. From 1942, a group of Rotterdam businessmen led by Van Nelle director Sees van der Leeuw, united in the Rotterdam Club, and progressive architects from Opbouw, a society of architects and artists, began to criticize Witteven's plans. They considered the reconstruction of Rotterdam to be more of an economic than an aesthetic matter.
Witteven "took self-removal" — he went on sick leave in April 1944, from which he never returned to implement his plan. Witteven was succeeded by his assistant Cornelis van Traa (1899–1970), who drew up a new reconstruction plan based on Witteven's ideas, called the "Basic Plan". Under van Traa, the city plan changed to a flexible scheme.
If Witteven thought mainly in three dimensions and designed the city with the help of perspective drawings, van Traa in his "Basic Plan" primarily defined infrastructure and zoning. His plan was two-dimensional and did not prevent possible transformations in the future.
Basic plan, 1946. © Rotterdam City Archives
Perhaps the most important innovation in van Traa's plan was the zoning of the city and the separation of residence from work and leisure. The center was intended primarily for work, shopping and entertainment
Councilor Minus Polak switches on the traffic lights on the renovated Hofplein, December 15, 1966. © Rotterdam City Archives
Chaos on the pre-war Hofplein. © Groot Rotterdam
Hofplein in the XXI century. Photo: © Ton Hermans
In the "Basic Plan", the idea of the old city triangle formed in the 44th-80th centuries was preserved, and the street layout was transformed into a regular grid of transport arteries. The Hofplein square, which in Witteven was a complex intersection with the modern Palace of Industry, in van Traa's plan turned into a well-organized traffic circle. Kulsingel Street was widened from XNUMX to XNUMX m to turn it into a real central boulevard.
An important feature of the plan was the reconstruction of Kulsingel in the direction of Šidamzeweg Street. There, at the intersection with Löwegafen, a so-called "window to the river" was formed, from where you could feel the proximity of the water and the docks. This intervention necessitated the demolition of what remained of the Bijenkorf department store building (1928–1930) designed by Willem Marinus Dudok. The center was expanded to the west, creating space for the Lijnbaan shopping district.
The basic plan was so flexible that the street pattern evolved from inner courtyards in the city center to the revolutionary Lijnbaan, which became the first planned pedestrian shopping street in Europe. Also, in the plan, a noticeable preference was given to multi-apartment buildings. Unlike Witteven, who stood on the foundations of traditional architecture subordinated and controlled by the city authorities, the "Basic Plan", on the contrary, provided more space for modern, functional architecture, freed from the framework of municipal requirements.
Department store De Bijenkorf shortly after completion, 1930s Source: alondoninheritance.com
New Bijenkorf designed by Marcel Breuer, 1957. Photo: © Frans Blok
In the late 1960s, when the plan was put into practice, the euphoria of reconstruction gave way to skepticism and criticism
Perhaps the most important innovation in van Traa's plan was the zoning of the city and the separation of residence from work and leisure. The center was intended primarily for work, shopping and entertainment. Businesses and factories were moved to special industrial districts outside the center. Housing was mainly planned in areas on the outskirts of the city and in the new garden suburbs in the south.
In contrast to Witteven's harmonious urban landscape, van Traa looked for clear and powerful contrasts between urban elements, such as the juxtaposition of the watery expanse of the Maas and the high-rise, rhythmic buildings of the bank. Or like Löwegafen's open dock, which stands out against the background of the surrounding densely built-up areas, or the contrasts between wide traffic arteries and narrow shopping streets, between traffic intersections and squares on the one hand, and courtyards and other spaces closed to traffic on the other .
Office building in Hoogstraat designed by Jo van den Broek and Jaap Bakema, 1953. Pictured is after modern reconstruction, © Frans Blok
The "basic plan" for the reconstruction of Rotterdam was adopted by the city council on May 28, 1946. A headline in Het Vrije Volk called the city to action: "Rotterdam, roll up your sleeves!". A pamphlet entitled "The New Heart of Rotterdam" was also published, and in 1947 a plan for the reconstruction of the city was presented as a model in the "Rotterdam in the Near Future" exhibition at the Museum Bojmans - van Benningen.
Groothandelsgebouw building designed by Hugh Maaskant and William of Tijen, 1953. Photo: © Frans Blok
In the late 1960s, when the plan was put into practice, the euphoria of reconstruction gave way to skepticism and criticism. The townspeople considered the new center barren, impersonal and joyless and wanted it to become more attractive, brighter, greener and have places to relax. In the 1970s, Amsterdam architects such as Piet Bloem were brought in for a transformation to add charm to the city.
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During this time, some buildings from the reconstruction era were demolished and replaced by modern architecture. But since the end of the XNUMXth century, a new wave of reevaluation of post-war architecture has been taking place. Many publications, exhibitions and events emphasize its unique qualities, buildings receive the status of architectural monuments and are restored.
View of the central part of the city from the 5th floor of the Netherlands Architecture Institute. Photo: © Ton Hermans
Manhattan on the Maas
Today's Rotterdam is an audacious collage, assembled from considered historical buildings of the 1996th-2014th centuries, modernist industrial and residential buildings of the beginning of the 2013th century, houses of the reconstruction era and modern landmarks - the Erasmus cable-stayed bridge (44) designed by Ben van Berkel (UNStudio); the multifunctional Markthal (2022) on the market square next to the reconstructed Laurenskerk, which brought its authors, MVRDV bureau, to the top architectural league; the "vertical city" De Rotterdam (215), three XNUMX-story towers on the banks of the Meuse, designed by the famous OMA; and the De Zalmhaven skyscraper (XNUMX) by Dam & Partner architects and Claus en Kaan Architecten, one of whose towers is XNUMX m high, soon to make it the tallest building in the Netherlands.
Two landmarks in one photo: the Erasmus cable-stayed bridge (1996) designed by Ben van Berkel (UNStudio) and the "vertical city" De Rotterdam (2013), designed by OMA
According to Rem Koolhaas, the high concentration of architectural practices per square meter in Rotterdam is directly related to its destruction during the Second World War
Markthal multifunctional building (2014) on the market square designed by MVRDV
Markthal (2014) in dialogue with Laurenskerk (1525)
According to Rem Koolhaas, whose office OMA, like many other famous architects in the Netherlands, is headquartered in Rotterdam, the high concentration of architectural practices per square meter in the city is directly related to its destruction during the Second World War: "The city almost completely disappeared , only a few buildings remain. Of course, it was subject to reconstruction, so it became very interesting for architects. It is no coincidence that this is where the vast majority of Dutch architects live," said Koolhaas in one of the interviews dedicated to the long-awaited completion of De Rotterdam in 2013.
Van Traa's basic plan allowed, on the one hand, to lay a structured center, and on the other hand, it provided flexibility in filling this structure
Koolhaas was born in Rotterdam in 1944, six months before the end of the war. He still remembers the deep crater from a German bomb in the middle of the sidewalk a few steps from his childhood home. Rotterdam's almost absent historical context of urban architecture, according to Koolhaas, gave the architects complete carte blanche to experiment with forms and scales. Based on the theory of contextualism, about which he wrote, in particular, in the study "Bigness or the problem of large" (Bigness or the problem of large, 1994), "if you create a building in an environment with others, the right way is to make it similar in scale and, if possible, by the means of expression."
But Koolhaas always considered this way of thinking very limited and considered instead another approach, which consists in contrast. “There are ways to experiment with these contrasts in architecture, just as the Surrealists, for example, combined an umbrella and a sewing machine in the same painting... Rotterdam is a city where this kind of experimentation is legal. Because it was destroyed, the whole idea of context here is very relative.”
Skyscraper De Zalmhaven (2022) by Dam & Partner architects and Claus en Kaan Architecten
Van Traa's basic plan allowed, on the one hand, to lay down a structured center, and on the other hand, it ensured the flexibility of filling this structure. At the first stage, in the 1950s and 1960s, it was mainly a block building, which was perceived as progressive and served as an example of the city of the future for developing countries. The next decade, according to the memories of the same Koolhaas, brought Rotterdam residents nostalgia for historicism.
At the same time, port activity began to gradually move towards the sea, and later Rotterdam, in which the port had played the role of a city-forming enterprise since the end of the 80th century, was threatened with turning into a ghost: "In the 90s and XNUMXs, the city no longer "looked" at busy harbor, but empty warehouses; it became a kind of ghost town.
So the reason De Rotterdam is where it is is because it has become important for the city to start the next phase of its existence, Koolhaas says. "So it's not just an architectural ambition, but part of the city's ambitions." By listening to them, OMA and other Dutch offices contribute to the development of Rotterdam in the conditions of the XNUMXst century. And it is for this reason that the city turned into a second Manhattan and became a center of Dutch skyscrapers. We'll see where the spiral of history will lead architectural Rotterdam.
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