Rotterdam travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

Cafe de Unie has sometimes been dismissed as ”facade architecture” for its eye-catching design that more closely resembles a Piet Mondrian painting than a building. Red, blue, and yellow dominate a three-dimensional geometric graphic design meant to attract passerby into the cafe. It is typical of the De Stijl movement of which Mondrian, J.J.P. Oud, and Gerrit Rietveld were the main proponents.
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A  bright  green  object  sitting  on  top  of  the  elevator  shaft  of  the  former  warehouse  building  Las  Palmas  acted  in  2001  as  a  widely  visible, three  dimensional  logo  for  its  host  building  whose  large, industrial  spaces  were  temporarily  used  for  various  exhibitions  during  Rotterdam’s  year  as  European  cultural  capital. One  of  the  exhibitions  was  called  Parasites  and  presented  designs  of  small-scale   objects  for  unused  urban  sites  making  “parasitic”  use  of  the  existing  infrastructure. The  exhibition  was  curated  and  organized  by  Mechthild  Stuhlmacher  and  Rien  Korteknie, involving  an international  group  of  architects.
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The Market Hall in Rotterdam is a permanent combination of food, leisure, living and parking. It is fully integrated to further improve and use the synergetic possibilities of the different functions, a public building emerging from housing.The arch houses  228 apartments, of which 102 for rent,  100 market stalls, shops and restaurants, 1200 parking spaces and an underground super market.
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This is the world’s very first Sustainable Dance Club located in Rotterdam. The club let party goers loose on its energy-generating dance floor! The club is called Watt and includes a LED-laden dance floor that is lit up solely by the kinetic energy generated by dancers. The new nightclub will also feature a variety of efficiency standards established by the Sustainable Dance Club group that allow it to save 30% on energy consumption, 50% on water use, cut CO2 emissions by 30%, and reduce waste by 50%.
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Piano house in Anhui, China

This unique piano house is in Anhui Province, China. This building was designed by the local Chinese government to attract more development to this area. Inside of the transparent violin is the escalator to the building, where a variety of city plans and ideas for the future development are on display.
Continue reading The most crazy buildings of the world – part 3

 Cubic House, Rotterdam, Netherlands 

One of the major attractions in the Rotterdam architecture are the Cubic Houses. The cubes are tilted and sit on hexagon-shaped structures.These are 39 cube-shaped dwellings, built in 1984 by Piet Biom, which are still inhabited. The living areas are divisions into three levels – the triangle-shaped lower level contains the living area, the middle level contains the sleeping area and a bathroom, and the top level is used a bedroom and relax place, offers a great view since the apex.
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Every city should have a great piece of symbolic architecture – In Paris it’s the Eiffel Tower; in New York – the Empire State Building; in Rotterdam it’s the Erasmus bridge. The Erasmus Bridge is a cable stayed bridge across the Nieuwe Maas river. The Bridge was designed by Ben van Berkel and completed in 1996. The 808 metre long bridge has a 139 metre-high asymmetrical pylon, earning the bridge its nickname of “The Swan” by locals because of its graceful posture over the water. The southern span of the bridge has a 89 metre long bascule bridge for ships that cannot pass under the bridge. The bascule bridge is the largest and heaviest in West Europe and has the largest panel of its type in the world. The bridge was officially opened by Queen Beatrix on 6.09. 1996, having cost about 75 million Euros to construct. Shortly after the bridge opened to traffic in October 1996, it was discovered the bridge would swing under particularly strong wind conditions. To reduce the trembling, stronger shock dampeners were installed.

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