Gelderseplein (Gelderland Square) is a new square in the center of Rotterdam. It’s on a site that lay vacant for years after the construction of the railway tunnel. Around it we find a diverse catalog of architectural styles. Most prominent is the White House, which was the tallest skyscraper in Europe after completion in 1898. At that time it was criticized by many as “too American”. The building survived the 1940 bombing but was nearly demolished in the seventies for the construction of a huge roundabout that fortunately never came.
Next to the White House there’s a row of eighteenth century buildings. Those were was stored in containers for five years during the construction of the tunnel and that was subsequently rebuilt. In addition, there are some recently completed projects: a residential tower with an ugly brown brick that I cannot get used to, as well as some more successful buildings like the Stedin office and the CitizenM hotel.
Spectacular architecture
On the other side of the Old Harbour, which is richly dotted with historic ships, there is Piet Blom’s spectacular architecture from the eighties: the Cube Houses and Monkey Rock. From the square also the WillemsBridge and the historic buildings and ships of Haringvliet are visible. You could say it’s a mess. But I personally think that this colorful collection is just one of the charms of Rotterdam.
This spherical panorama shows it all. Composed of 29 photos that I took one morning when the light and the sky were exactly to my liking. As a follow up to my earlier explanation about making bolpanorama’s I created this making-of video:
. And if you’d like to have this image on your wall: that’s possible too.
