De Rotterdam

Project Details

Project Description

FROM THE INTERNATIONAL HIGHRISE AWARD COMMITTEE:

Rem Koolhaas is famous for his superlatives – accordingly, his highrise complex consisting of three towers on the Wilhelminapier in Rotterdam’s former port towers up over the district like a massif. “De Rotterdam” takes its orientation from the idea of a “vertical city”, whose manifold functions appear to be visibly stacked. Its 30-meter-high base structure houses a parking garage on six levels. An expansive entrance foyer offers ground-floor access to a congress center, restaurants, bars, cafés and fitness studios. The entire complex also boasts offices, 240 apartments and a hotel. The thinking behind this diversity of uses is to contribute to livening up this district in the port area around the clock and encouraging Rotterdam residents to visit the southern part of their city. With 160,000 m² of utilizable floor space on a plot of land the size of a soccer pitch, “De Rotterdam” is the most densely populated area in the Netherlands. Overall, the design has been pared down to the functionally necessary. What remains are spectacular views over the city and the River Maas out of floor-to-ceiling glass windows. The external façades have been clad with an aluminum post-and-beam construction, making for a filigree appearance which changes depending on the viewer’s position. This provides the complex as a whole with its unifying, compact shell.