Netherlands: Topsy-Turvy Rotterdam

 

There are 38 single-cube  residences and two double or super cubes in Rotterdam's curious
 Cube Houses, built between 1982 and  1984  and designed by Piet Blom. All but one are lived in.
 The exception is the one that is open to the public. We were told that one of the one-bedroom houses
costs about 380 euros or about 440,000 USD.

Lots of people I know have visited Amsterdam, once famous among young Americans for coffeehouses that allowed marijuana smoking. No one ever mentioned Rotterdam and before we started planning this trip, Jane and I knew little about it. Rotterdam has a population of about 665,000; Amsterdam's is about 921,000.

Rotterdam, unlike Amsterdam, was heavily damaged during the Second World War. Although there are some obviously older buildings here and there, it seems to be a post-war city where architects let their imaginations run wild. After weeks of medieval, renaissance, baroque and gothic architecture in France and Belgium, Rotterdam would be something different.

On Thursday, June 5, we took the 90-minue train ride from Brussels to Rotterdam. We stayed three nights in the Centre area at Morgan & Mees, a small and pleasant hotel on a quiet street. After checking in, we walked about half an hour to see the  Cube Houses, certainly one of the world's oddest housing complexes. On the way we passed the  Depot, an unusual warehouse of a museum housed in a reflective bowl-shaped building.

On that Friday, we took a quick Metro train to The Hague, the de facto capital of the Netherlands (Amsterdam somehow is the official capital but everything is based and everything happens in The Hague) and the seat of the International Court of Justice, a branch of the United Nations. We were there primarily to see Johannes Vermeer's "Girl With a Pearl Earring" at the Mauritshuis museum.  It is displayed as if it were just another of the museum's masterpieces, which means you can see it up close. I think the girl's expression is as captivating as the Mona Lisa's. 

The Hague itself is the Netherlands' third-largest city and is well supplied with sidewalk cafes and busy retail streets.  We limited our time here, however, to the Mauritshaus and lunch. 

The next day, a Saturday, was overcast with occasional rain, so we stayed near our hotel, but fortunately it is near the Depot, so we spent a good part of the day safely inside. One of the many interesting exhibits demonstated how glass can sometimes "weep" (degrade) with time. I think most people are famliar that glass can "flow," eventually producing wavy distortions in window panes, but this was glass sometimes (but not always) becoming cloudy simply from the passage of time.

We had three dinners in Rotterdam, and twice we ate a block from our hotel at Luus, a bistro where the owner was the host, waiter and bartender. His English was so good that I thought he was an American ex-pat, but he said he only watched American TV programs and had never been to the U.S. I had the grilled chicken there twice. Jane had bream. Simple but good food. The menu was not in English but the owner was happy to explain all the dishes. All the other guests seemed to be locals.

Another dinner was at Sijf, a brasserie about a 10-minute walk from our hotel. I had veal schnitzel and Jane had ribs, all excellent.  The restaurant looks a bit like an old Ruby Tuesday on steroids but with everyone speaking Dutch. 

Here are some photos from Rotterdam and The Hague:

The Cube Houses, each a a cube shape tilted to stand on one corner, which rests on
pylons. The architect saw the design as an urban roof.

The angled lounge or living room in a Cube House. 
A narrow and steep stairway connects the Cube's
 two living levels.

The Markthal (Market Hall) is a residential and office building practically
adjacent to the Cube Houses.  It has a large market hall with food vendors as well
as other shops, 228 apartments and four levels of underground parking. Many
of the residences have windows looking into the food hall area, which runs
the length of the building.

Blaaktoren (Black Tower) is also known as The Pencil
because of its pointy top. It's a residential tower also
near the Cube Houses. Here it's seen from inside the
Markthal. Note the apartment windows that look
into the food market. 

We arrived at Rotterdam's Central Station from Brussels, we
took a Metro train from here to The Hague, and when we
left Rotterdam to go to Amsterdam, it was from here, too.

Mauritshuis, a relatively small museum in The Hague, punches above its
weight with a trove of Vermeers, Rembrandts and other works that most
major museums must covet. And visitors feel like children on Christmas
morning as they go from small room to small room on one floor to see
these masterpieces. "The Goldfinch" (1654) by Carel Fabritius became famous
 in recent years thanks to Donna Tartt's novel in which the painting goes missing
for years.It shows the bird sitting on its feeder, chained by its foot. Goldfinches
were popular pets at one time and could be taught to perform tricks.

A few steps away from "The Goldfinch" is one of Rembrandt's earliest masterpiece, "The
Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicholaes Tulp" (1662). It was commissioned by the Surgeons' Guild
to be desplayed in their meeting room. Some of the observers paid to be included. 

A room adjacent to "The Goldfinch" room is where
you'll find "Girl with a Pearl Earring" (1665) by Johannes
Vermeer, a painting made even more famous by a movie
starring Scarlett Johansson as the model. In fact, the girl
in the painting probably never existed. The work is a
"tronie," which means a picture of a head not meant
as a portrait. Vermeer could have painted an imaginary
girl or he manipulated the image of a model. There
are two other Vermeer works here.

Back in Rotterdam, the architecturally intriguing Depot is an art museum
 unlike any other I've experienced. It's next door to a more traditional
museum, which we did not visit.

The interior of the Depot is just as much
fun as its exterior.

Most major museums always have a significant percentage of their holdings in storage
due to limited exhibition space. That's why we're seeing branches of the Guggenheim,
the Pompidou Center and even the Louvre open around the world. Here the stored
art is still available to those who seek it out.

While the Depot is inovative on many fronts, to me it 
fell a bit short in its curators' notes, which are often
essential to understanding what one is looking at.

We had lunch at the Depot's rooftop restaurant and then went out to its rooftop garden
for this view of the Rotterdam skyline.

Sijf is a lively place for drinks or dinner. 

We came across this fellow, part of a much larger sculpture, presiding
over a busy street between our hotel at the Cube Houses.

This Santa Claus, popularly known as the
Buttplug Gnome, is in Eendrachtsplein, a square
that we happened into on our way to Sijf. It's a 2001
work by Paul McCarthy. It was intended for a 
spot outside a concert hall, but moved due to
protests from nearby businesses. Now it's 
popular enough that store posters and banners
depict it. The artist said it's supposed to be Santa 
holding a Christmas tree but also a comment about
material consumption. He seems OK with people
seeing it as a buttplug, though.