Rotterdam

My parents and sister spent a few days here in the Netherlands recently. They caught the overnight ferry from Hull-Rotterdam and I showed them the sights and sounds of a carnaval-ridden Breda (this had its upsides as there was a lot of life in the city, but on the other hand we couldn't really go to any of the restaurants/bars I had intended to take them to). The day they were due to go back, we went to Rotterdam to see the sights. Rotterdam is a complete exception to the standard Dutch town of small winding streets, canals and gabled houses; it's a completely modern city, with all the plus and negatives that entails. 

The skyline of Rotterdam when coming over the Maas from the south is really quite impressive, with towers stretching as far as you can see. On the 14th of May, 1940 the city was nearly completely destroyed by the Germans during the invasion of the Netherlands, in a successful attempt to force the Netherlands to surrender. 

As such, unlike the vast majority of dutch cities largely untouched by the Second World War, Rotterdam was an open playing field for post-war architects and planners who envisaged a more modern city with wider streets and higher buildings. It's hard to explain how the atmosphere of Rotterdam is so different to all other cities I have been to in the Netherlands, it can only be put down to the architecture and design of the city.

The Netherlands beats Britain hand down on modern buildings. In the UK, we have a tendency to think that anything new is by definition bad, as such we ham buildings up to look as old as possible (hence the chocolate box Wimpey homes and Prince Charles' Poundland development). The Netherlands allows its modern buildings to reflect the fact that they aren't built in 1750, so why should they look like that? Whether or not these are better due to their modernity is a different matter, there are considerable problems with ill-thought out high-density developments - look at Le Corbusier and his towers built to solve the post-war housing crisis. Striking buildings, but due to a number of factors they have declined into places where people do not want to live - anathema to a building.

The Cube Houses by Piet Blom are another such development. Architecturally impressive and unique (but for their sister development in Helmond, NL), the Cube Houses or Kubuswoningen in Dutch are an insight into what can happen when you allow modern buildings to reflect their modernity. 

The occasional building escaped the blitz of 1940 and this can be seen in the details of their façades. Decorative features are a staple of pre-1920s architecture, when their use began to fall out of fashion in favour of more practical, simplistic designs whose (often unappreciated) beauty is derived from their scale. 

In conclusion, Rotterdam is (to quote Bart Simpson's hastily-improvised model UN report on Libya) a place of contrasts...