If one European city deserves the title of post-modern urbanity it must be Rotterdam. The city harbors monuments from all different epochs which each embed a political (or anti-political) meaning.

Rotterdam has historically been forced to live in the shadow of the country's capital and is because of that insecure in its spatial being. The city is in constant struggle to overcome its self-imposed position of underdog and attemptively tries to undo itself. As such it is a city of hope, arrogance and constant motion.

The below pictures are symbolic representations of the city's lived history and its futuristic destiny. The different styles and spatial meanings totalise into a eclectic urban space full of different forms and colours. I think that in eastetic terms, there are not many cities in Europe which are as interesting as this one.

17th Century

19201920s/ 30s
WWII
1910/ 1920s (?) retroPost WWII1970s/ 1980s1970s1990s/ nowNowTomorrowTomorrowTomorrow
Pictures from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/heavenuphere/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/els/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/robweststrate/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/by_irma/, http://www.harbourislandrotterdam.nl/ amoung many other sources. Please let me know if you think your name should be mentioned here or if you want your images removed from this site.

Ryugyong Hotel

"It's a giant factory-state here, a City of the Future full of extrapolated 1930's swoop-facaded and balconied skyscrapers, lean chrome caryatids with bobbed hairdos, classy airships of all descriptions drifting in the boom and hush of the city abysses, golden lovelies sunning in roof gardens and turning to wave as you pass. It is the Raketen-Stadt..." (Pynchon in Gravity's Rainbow).