3Develop Beeldblog / Image Blog

A "post-completion drawing" of the Basic Plan for the Reconstruction of Rotterdam bij Cornelis van Traa from 1946, with the city as it has been built in the 80 years after the 1940 bombing

15. March 2020

The Reconstruction of Rotterdam Revised

This year we commemorate that eighty years ago the reconstruction of Rotterdam started. On May 14, 1940, much of the city was destroyed by the German bombardment and subsequent fire. Just four days later, on May 18, city architect W.G. Witteveen was commissioned to make a plan for the rebuilding. The ultimate Basic Plan for Reconstruction, drawn by Witteveen’s successor Cornelis van Traa, was not aproved by the city council until 1946. As a result of that Plan, the street map of the city center was drastically changed in many places. As I searched through my Rotterdam archive, I came… Read More

Artist impression of the "Belgian" planet Nervia, portrayed as a gas giant in the black, yellow and red of the national flag, with some moons, a ring and the star Neburonia

Space art

14. February 2020

The Chronicles of Nervia

A few weeks ago I made an artist impression of the “Dutch” planet Nachtwacht as a red, white and blue, Jupiter-like gas giant. But such a planetary image in the national colors can of course be made for our southern neighbors as well. After all, also Belgium has recently acquired a planet and a star. As part of the NameExoWorlds project of the International Astronomical Union, the Belgian public could name this piece of real estate in the Milky Way galaxy Gaul The name the Belgians have given to “their” planet sounds a lot more euphonious than the guttural Dutch… Read More

Silver grey Porsche Macan Turbo parked at Maasvlakte near Rotterdam with the sea and a spectacular cloudy sky in the background

Photography

10. February 2020

Porsche photography for beginners

To be honest, I usually don’t care much about cars. Okay, sometimes they are useful to get to a place where there is no public transport. Or to transport something too big for a bicycle. But I don’t have the required papers to drive them. And I can hardly see the difference between a Mercedes and an Opel. However, I hear everyone say it is good to occasionally step out of your comfort zone. So when Robin Groenendijk of 64 Porsche Lifestyleblog asked me if I wanted to take photos for an article, I didn’t have to hesitate long. And… Read More

Australia reforested, a detail of the Forest World Map, made of 15.000 digital trees, surrounded by virtual grassy meadows, with also New Zealand and a part of Indonesia

Cartography / Various

31. January 2020

A Virtual Forest and One Trillion Real Trees

Planting trees is perhaps the most fun way to save the world. Who doesn’t love a forest, an arboretum or a beautiful avenue of trees? I am giving a symbolic impetus with my digital forest world map, but of course more needs to be done. Much more. Land art The World Map of Trees, shown below, is made of more than 15,000 trees. Together they form the continents of our planet, while the surrounding grassy meadows represent the oceans. A piece of land art on an area of approximately 200 hectares, accessed by roads and paths (the equator and some… Read More

The shining pot of the Boymans museum collection building under construction in Museum Park in Rotterdam during the blue hour on a morning the the winter of 2020

Photography

26. January 2020

January Mornings: the 2020 Edition

In a previous post I explained why early January is such a good time to go out taking photographs at daybreak. There’s no need to set the alarm inhumanely early because the latest (in the sense of the least early) sunrise is around New Year’s Day. And in this time of year sunrise coincides more or less with the morning rush hour, making it easy to adorn the photos with light trails and other special effects. Also this year I went out a few times early in the morning for a photo expedition through Rotterdam in the blue hour. Unfortunately… Read More

Artist impression of the planet Nachtwacht (Night Watch), a red, white and blue gas giant, with two of ots moons as well as parent star Sterrennacht (Starry Night)

Space art

18. January 2020

Holland in the Sky: Night Watch and Starry Night

Since December 17, 2019, the Netherlands has two new far outposts: the planet Night Watch and the star Starry Night. The IAU, the International Astronomical Union, asked us to come up with a name for those two celestial bodies, which were previously known under the somewhat boring character combinations HAT-P-6 and HAT-P-6b. Inhabitants of the 111 other countries affiliated with the IAU were also assigned a cosmic duo, as part of the NameExoWorlds campaign. The Dutch public came up with some interesting suggestions for “our” planet and star Rembrandt and Van Gogh Out of 6,000 suggestions submitted, the national jury… Read More

Map of the metro network of Rotterdam, The Netherlands as it may look like in 2050, with three new lines and some smaller extensions

Design / Various

1. January 2020

The Rotterdam Metro in Past, Present and Future

The Rotterdam metro network is the oldest in the Netherlands. With more than one hundred kilometers, five lines and seventy stations, it is also the most extensive metro network in our country. How did that happen? What are the expectations for the future? And couldn’t that map of the line network be a little prettier? I’ll answer those questions in this blog post. The beginning The Rotterdam metro was officially opened on February 9, 1968. On that day trains started running on the first section: six kilometers, seven stations, from Central Station to Zuidplein. I was there, together with my… Read More

Details of a ship hull with peeling paint, rust stains and stripes and embossed numbers of the draught mark

Photography

19. December 2019

Countdown: the ten best photos of 2019

Here we are again: the top 10 of the best photos of the year 2019. Or well, let me put that in perspective: these are the ten best photos I took this year, in my own humble opinion. Also, it’s a kind of snapshot; tomorrow I may think very differently. But anyway, at least they are ten special pictures. The long list Like in previous years, I had a huge collection to choose from. I took around five thousand photos in 2019, from which I compiled a long list with almost two hundred nominees. 10 – Cloudburst in Roermond On… Read More

Artist impression of the ESA probe Huygens, landing on Titan, largest moon of the planet Saturn, in january 2005

Space art

2. December 2019

Space Quotes

This collection of space quotes, cosmic wisecracks and universal oneliners was originally tweeted from the, nowadays pretty dormant, Modified Mars Twitteraccount. I felt they deserved a more permanent location; after all, colonizing the Galaxy is a long term project. Some of these quotes are funny, others are dead serious; occasionally they’re both. They all are, sometimes very obvious, in other cases rather remotely, linked to themes like Mars, spaceflight, astronomy or the universe in general. And since I call this an image blog, I mix the quotes with some space art I’ve produced over the years. “We are all in the… Read More

Branches and red leaves of a sweet gum tree (liquidambar styraciflua) in the Park in Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Photography

28. November 2019

Autumn in Rotterdam: a Tree Tour

I hardly have to tell the reader why it’s good to have trees in the city. They purify the air, they absord CO2, they make it slightly less hot in the summertime and they retain water after heavy rain showers. And of course they also make things more beautiful. This decorative function is most obvious in two periods: spring and autumn. Trees that in previous months were fairly inconspicuously bare or green, suddenly burst out into a feast of color. Now that the meteorological (and photographic) fall is over, this blogpost aims to give a small, totally incomplete, tour of… Read More