Tagged: rotterdam

Artist impression of the High Line Baan, a park on the roof of Lijnbaan shopping center in Rotterdam

15. September 2017

From Tweet to Rooftop Park: the High Line Baan

Couldn’t those flat roofs of the shops on Lijnbaan, the pedestrian street in downtown Rotterdam, be turned into a roofpark? I made an artist impression and investigated the pros and cons of such a High Line Baan. Rooftop Days It started with a tweet. At 11 July, I placed a photo on my Twitter account, made during the Rotterdam Rooftop Days. It showed the city’s main shopping street, Lijnbaan, seen in southern direction from one of the adjacent apartment buidings. A remarkable strip of low-rise buildings in a city that’s proud to be the Netherlands’ highrise capital. With a roofscape… Read More

Stained glass windows in the front facade of Steiger Church in Rotterdam during Open Monuments Day

Photography

12. September 2017

Open Monuments Day 2017 in Rotterdam: Churches, Shelters and Other Heritage

On 9 and 10 September, doors opened that usually stay closed. It was Nationale Heritage Day, or as we call it in the Netherlands: Open Monuments Day. Although the name is still singular, the event now covers the entire second weekend of September. Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of Rotterdam heritage during those days. But fortunately, the program offers new surprises every year. And sometimes it’s fun to revisit a monument as well. Schielandshuis I had been in the Schielandshuis, the only 17th century building in the city center , when it was still Museum Rotterdam. These days,… Read More

Spherical panoarama, or little planet, made of twelve photographs taken at the lawn in the little park in front of Saint Lwarence's Church in Rotterdam

Digital art / Photography

19. June 2017

A New Park, a New Panorama: Saint-Lawrence’s Planet

There was a time when I made a lot of spherical and tubular panoramas but the last one, at Kruisplein, dates back to over a year ago. There are two reasons for this. First of all, those little planets are actually quite time-consuming. Well, Photoshop takes a lot of work out of your hands, but you still have to work hard to eliminate minor irregularities, fill in missing information, and tweak details. Secondly, I became a lot more critical in choosing locations. I am looking for special places, geometric shapes, beautiful compositions or other reasons. And I just do not… Read More

View from the Codarts building towards the Calypso block and Westersingel during the Rotterdam Rooftop Days 2017

Photography

14. June 2017

The Rotterdam Rooftop Days 2017

There are a few moments each year, when many places in Rotterdam can be visited that are usually not accessible. A great opportunity to get to know the city in a completely different way. There are in fact four of those moments: the Open Monuments Days, Architecture Day, the Hidden Gardens and the Rotterdam Rooftop Days. Unfortunately the Rooftops and Gardens are always in the same weekend, even though there are no less than 52 weekends in a year. Why is no one coordinating that? Anyway, a difficult decision had to be made. A decision that this time turned out… Read More

Detail of a knitting pattern of the Rotterdam skyline

Various

14. April 2017

The Rotterdam Skyline Knitting Pattern

3Develop, the reliable source for all your knitting patterns … I have the feeling that a lot of my blog posts start with “… is not 3Develop’s core business, but …”. This is one of those posts again. Graphic skyline It is yet another spin-off of my Rotterdam skyline project. I made this graphic portrayal of the city’s skyline a few years ago for a contest. Which I lost ingloriously but since then the picture, in different versions, has started to live a life of its own. It hangs on walls, it adorns birth announcement cards and on April 9… Read More

Downtown rotterdam between central station and the river and between Claes de Vrieselaan and Mariniersweg; fragment of a map of Rotterdam with all city blocks as glass in 15 different colors

Cartography / Visualisation

26. March 2017

The Glass Map of Rotterdam: a plan in fifteen colors

Wow! That must have been a hell of a job … Cutting all those pieces of colored glass, exactly the right size and shape. And then carefully arranging them on a steel plate to create a colorful map of Rotterdam. Digital glass No, fortunately these days we have software to simulate things like that digitally. This glass map of Rotterdam was made using an AutoCAD file of the city’s building blocks. In 3ds Max, I added some irregularity to make it look not too computerized. Then I, totally randomly, assigned to each block one of fifteen different colors of glass.… Read More

Ferriw Wheel The View, a temporary attraction on Binnenrotte square next to the Market Hall in downtwon Rotterdam, seen from the bridge across Steigergracht

Photography

16. March 2017

The Rotterdam Ferris Wheels

For a few years in a row, in 2016, 2017 and 2018, Rotterdam had a Ferris wheel, for a few weeks. With English names: The View and Dinner Wheel. The location: Binnenrotte square, almost touching the famous Markthal (or should I say Market Hall?). Motion When I went to take a look on one of the first nights the wheel was operational, Binnenrotte was teeming with photographers. For a photographer Ferris wheels are beautiful objects to portray. Especially during the blue hour after sunset, when the shutter speeds are getting longer. The movement of the rotating wheel creates beautiful abstract… Read More

Christmas card of the author: a paintified photograph of the maritime outdoor museum at Leuvehaven in Rotterdam, covered with snow

Digital art

26. December 2016

Winter in Rotterdam: a white Christmas animation

Anecdotal evidence is no evidence at all. It’s hard to say whether or not the boring winters of the last few years are an effect of global warming. For which, by the way, there is enough real evidence; that’s what scientists (or at least 99.9% of them) agree on. Mild Anyway, the last few winters were exceptionally mild. Especially here in the southwest of the Netherlands. On television I see people skating on natural ice in the northern province of Friesland or a beautiful blanket of snow in the eastern region of the Achterhoek. But the last time Rotterdam colored… Read More

Photo made at the Old Harbour in Rotterdam on a misty day, with the White house and the boats in the harbour in sharp vision but William Bridge as a vague contour.

Photography

22. November 2016

Fog in Rotterdam

Fog is a natural phenomenon that can occur in any season, but in autumn it’s more likely to show its face. That seems to be related to relatively large temperature differences between day and night, although Wikipedia reports that the forming of fog depends on many factors. The presence of open water certainly also plays a role. And we have a lot of open water in Rotterdam. Like all special weather phenomena mist provides opportunities for photographers. And at the same time it creates challenges: if you are surrounded by mist, the pictures tend to be rather featureless and gray.… Read More

Selection of photographs with the theme of Rotterdam on the edges of the night

Various

20. October 2016

Rotterdam: the Edges of the Night – new expo in the Lijnbaan gallery

Since this week there’s a new exhbition of photographs from my Rotterdam collection in my Lijnbaan gallery. This didn’t happen at the expense of the permanent collection, which is still there like it has been in the last two years on the front facade of 3Develop’s premises in one of the residential building in the Lijnbaan national heritage area. Blue Hours Unlike the permanent collection, which gives an comprehensive overview of my work, I have picked a more defined theme this time: Rotterdam on the Edges of the Night. Photos taken in the so-called blue hour before sunrise and after… Read More