The MAS is an impressive building with a museum, among other things. Because it is also the visible storage, the museum square with Luc Tuymans’ mosaic, the boulevard, the rooftop panorama, etc. The MAS is a total experience. Nowdays, Antwerp has its own iconic piece of museum architecture and it’s poised to make the medieval Flemish town a global destination. The Museum aan de Stroom opened last weekend to an estimated 100,000 visitors, including the Belgian royal family. 

The MAS brings together the collections from the former Etnografisch Museum, the Nationaal Scheepvaartmuseum and the Volkskundemuseum. They are given a new home in the MAS along with part of the Vleeshuis Museum collection and the Paul and Dora Janssen-Arts collection. The collections are spread over four floors and are not displayed side by side. The pieces are connected through a dynamic scenography on the different floors. They don’t just impart information. They tell stories, they endure, they are actors in an ever-changing play.

Once Antwerp was a harbor village with a massive port more than seven times the size of its commercial center. In the 1600s, the city was the seat of the Dutch superpower, establishing the nation’s merchant status for centuries to come. Today, Antwerp belongs to Belgium and it’s still a city defined by its watery borders. And it’s there, just off the River Scheldt between the historic city center and the up-and-coming industrial neighborhood het Eilandje, that the MAS Museum steps into its starring role.

With this museum, Antwerp got a a striking ten-story monolith of stacked boxes in alternating red Indian limestone and undulating glass. The architects, Neutelings Riedijk from Rotterdam, rotated each level 90 degrees, allowing the escalators to ascend around the perimeter of the museum. The effect is a moving viewing platform affording wraparound views of the city, from the Gothic Cathedral of Our Lady to the domed Centraal Station to the grittier docklands and warehouses in the immediate vicinity of MAS.

Maritiem Museum is a museum that belongs to Rotterdam just as much as its harbors do. At the corner of Churchillplein, the white building housing the Maritiem Museum stands proud next to Leuvehaven, accompanied by the statue of Zadkine and the Kraneschipbrug.

The museum is also an ideal place if you are a parent and have small playful child. There is children’s playground at the roof where a container company is copied in miniature. Children can climb in the hoisting cranes and shuffle containers around. The other floors are filled with at kinds of maritime knowledge, among the maritime history of Rotterdam itself. The very impressive thing was the gigantic 3d map of Rotterdam, which shows what Rotterdam looks like now and how it looked like in the past. You could even crawl under it.

Most of people visitng the Maritiem Museum love to spend their time at the Buffel. The Buffel is an old ship that has been restored to its original state and is equipped with dolls and furniture, to show what life aboard this ship was like. Over the speakers you can hear the old sailors talk in there accents and jargon. It is Dutch, but nevertheless it puts an extra touch to it, to get you in the mood of the past.

Don’t miss to visit the cosy, hospitable museum restaurant Lloyd’s for a cup of coffee or a delicious lunch with a beautiful view across ‘Leuve’ Harbour.  When the weather is nice the pavement cafe is a good place to relax. The modern library has a valuable collection where visitors can find a wealth of information about the history of shipbuilding and shipping. Admission is free. The museum library is open to the public from Tuesday until Friday and on the first Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.

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.

The cafe was designed by Oud, who was inluenced by the esteemed architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage as well as his friendship with Van Doesburg, but developed a formal vocabulary of his own. The commission for Cafe de Unie came from the Rotterdam Housing Authority, for which Oud was Municipal Housing Architect between 1918 and 1933.

Cafe de Unie is now located on Mauritzweg, near Rotterdam Central Station. It was built to fill a site on buildings, and was only meant to be temporary. It survived fifteen years until it was bombed during World War II. In 1985 the cafe was reconstructed 500 m from its original site. Location: Rotterdam, Netherlands.

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.
Taking  advantage  of  the  enterprising  atmosphere  of  the  cultural  year, one  of  the  designs  was  built  in  full  scale. The  roof  of  the  building  amidst    the  varied, spectacular  roofscape   of  the  Rotterdam  harbour  area  proved  to  be  an  ideal  location.

The  Las  Palmas  Parasite  was  a  prototypical  house  aiming  to  combining   the  advantages  of  prefabricated  technology  and  the  unique  qualities  of  tailor-made  design. The  limitations  imposed  by  the  size  of  the  elevator  shaft  demanded  a  compact  plan  and  volume.

The  object  was  supported  by  the  walls  of  the  exhisting  building. Services  like  water  supply, sewage  and  the  electric  installation  had  been  linked  to  the  exhisting  installations. Despite  its  temporary  character, the  building  remained  in  its  location  until  the  summer  of  2005  and  was  used  for  numerous  activities. Due  to  the  planned  renovation  of  Las  Palmas  the  Parasite  then  had  to  be  removed  and  is  currently  in  storage, waiting  for  new  uses  and  sites.

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.

The project is still developing and set to be completed in 2014 and part of the current regeneration of Rotterdam‘s post war centre. Project developer Provast realizes the building, Unibail Rodamco invested in the shops and restaurants whilst Housing Corporation Vesteda will manage the rental apartments, making the building a socially integrated part of the city.

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%.

Watt features a variety of sustainable strategies that include the use of energy-efficient LED lighting instead of powerhungry spotlights, a rainwater catchment system that supplies water for its toilets, and waterless urinals which will save an expected 1000 cubic meters of water per year.

Currently the sustainable dance floor does not power the club although Watt have stated that they “are looking for a way to use the floor output in the future to power other systems”. The club also has, cafe area, theater and business premises. The cafe is a bustling and accessible meeting place. Business appointments, a drink with some friends before the start of a concert, coffee with coconut pie with grandma. The menu offers authentic dishes for a get-together or a modest dinner. In the summer of 2009 WATT will have extended the cafe well outdoors, towards the park.

The theater stands for entertainment, culture and artistic productions. It is the perfect space for spontaneous, smaller performances or relaxed get-togethers. It can also be opened up towards the cafe, which makes having a cup of coffee a unique experience in itself.

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.

The Blue Building, Netherlands

This building is located in the borough of Delfshaven, Rotterdam. It was once derelict building and one of the most unseen blocks of houses in Rotterdam. But by applying a layer of only 2 micron of blue paint, the block will remain blue as long as there isn’t a new plan for the area. And it became Rotterdam’s most photographed one.

 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.

This is an abandoned resort in Sanjhih - small town on the North coast of Taiwan, that locals call “UFO House”. It was built as a holiday resort in the 1970s, by a keeper of a rubber company. It was costs 7-8 hundred million new Taiwan dollars. They planed to make it 5 stars resort hotel with the first yacht dock in the North coast of Taiwan.  However, the rubber company closed down in the energy crisis in 1980.

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