CITY PROFILE: Rotterdam
By Rebecca Quin
Monday 28th September 2009
Monday 28th September 2009
Rebecca Quin recommends Rotterdam for an affordably ideal city break.
Just 45 minutes from its eurotrashy counterpart, Rotterdam lies, or rather poses coolly on the banks of the Nieuwe Maas dressed in the kind of colourful, dynamic architecture you might find in H&M if they sold buildings. The elegant Erasmus Bridge; named after our favourite humanist traveller and year abroad sponsor Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, overlooks a sparkling expanse of 21st century urbanity, like a DJ spinning for a never-ending city disco. Rotterdam is a clean, smooth and shiny use of a landscape principally destroyed by German Luftwaffe, providing a canvas for 20th century and onwards architectural innovation; from Piet Blom’s abstract cube houses to recent proposals for a ‘Forum Rotterdam’ above the central post office that will somehow manage to hold a theatre, apartments and a congress centre within ribbons of building that weave together in a giant white web of audacious physics. Creation is this city’s buzz word, travelling like pollen from building to bridge to club to concept so that the atmosphere feels youthful, vibrant and continually on the move. Unlike other centres conceived at the height of modernism, Rotterdam doesn’t create a Dubai-like illusion so obviously artificial. There is a sense of unpretentious revelry in newness and recognition of the transitory quality of trend, fashion and even youth. The best way to explore the city is by night, not for stealth purposes but to experience the perpetual Dutch party. Fridays and Saturdays are, of course, the busiest nights and you’ll find yourself being carried along by the throng of young internationals drinking raspberry Bacardi and dancing like Isaac Heyes. Just walking through Stadhuisplein will feel like you’ve been invited to a party of someone with a very large garden. There are an unaccountable number of trendy bars and clubs which, in the grand tradition of continental efficiency, are often located in conversions; Off Corso for example is housed in an old cinema and plays cult films on large screens above the dance floor. A Rotterdam New Year’s Eve can be spent in a disused meat factory, hooks and all, dancing with the ghosts of cows past. The music branches from a kind of new funk core with lots of melody even in techno and house sets but there are many different, bizarrely located places that play all kinds of music. Going out in Rotterdam, whether it be for coffee and apple pie at Dudok or dancing at the fabulous Get Back which plays only retro disco, is how I imagine it is to be Jackie Chan in Who Am I: confused but still really, really cool. Once you’ve bopped the night away (in a non-St Andrews-filled with impending regret-way), the city has an equally trendy range of budget-conscious accommodation. The Stayokay Rotterdam cube hostel offers dorms for around 25 Euros a night actually in one of Blom’s cube houses with an appropriately sleek interior and flexible bunk beds in case you need, or want, to double up. Public transport is cheap, easy and god-forbid punctual via a pre-paid OV-chipkaart which you can top-up as you visit the somewhat functionless yet impressive Euromast, the Boijmans Van Beuningen museum which has one of the leading art collections in the Netherlands and commandeer a Segway to ride around the largest European port. Timing your visit well could mean taking part in one of the many city festivals throughout the year. The biggest include the FFWD Heineken Dance Parade which parades forty floats through Rotterdam ending in a giant party with eight stages headed by Dutch and International DJs at the end of July, and the International Film Festival over twelve days at the beginning of February. The North Sea Jazz Indoor Festival is the biggest in the world, held the second weekend of July with a programme that plays host to established and new jazz artists from all over the world.
Rotterdam, in the profound words of the Vengaboys is an intercity disco, with a sense of humour and a Versaillaise pleasure ethic, without the Revolution. It’s a great place to be young and have fun and feel part of something, though that might be the intoxication. The wonderful thing is that it’s a living, working city that won’t claw at your fanny pack. The industry is more of a happy addition to a self-sustaining port city that is friendly, accessible and yet the embodiment of something very cool.
Just 45 minutes from its eurotrashy counterpart, Rotterdam lies, or rather poses coolly on the banks of the Nieuwe Maas dressed in the kind of colourful, dynamic architecture you might find in H&M if they sold buildings. The elegant Erasmus Bridge; named after our favourite humanist traveller and year abroad sponsor Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, overlooks a sparkling expanse of 21st century urbanity, like a DJ spinning for a never-ending city disco. Rotterdam is a clean, smooth and shiny use of a landscape principally destroyed by German Luftwaffe, providing a canvas for 20th century and onwards architectural innovation; from Piet Blom’s abstract cube houses to recent proposals for a ‘Forum Rotterdam’ above the central post office that will somehow manage to hold a theatre, apartments and a congress centre within ribbons of building that weave together in a giant white web of audacious physics. Creation is this city’s buzz word, travelling like pollen from building to bridge to club to concept so that the atmosphere feels youthful, vibrant and continually on the move. Unlike other centres conceived at the height of modernism, Rotterdam doesn’t create a Dubai-like illusion so obviously artificial. There is a sense of unpretentious revelry in newness and recognition of the transitory quality of trend, fashion and even youth. The best way to explore the city is by night, not for stealth purposes but to experience the perpetual Dutch party. Fridays and Saturdays are, of course, the busiest nights and you’ll find yourself being carried along by the throng of young internationals drinking raspberry Bacardi and dancing like Isaac Heyes. Just walking through Stadhuisplein will feel like you’ve been invited to a party of someone with a very large garden. There are an unaccountable number of trendy bars and clubs which, in the grand tradition of continental efficiency, are often located in conversions; Off Corso for example is housed in an old cinema and plays cult films on large screens above the dance floor. A Rotterdam New Year’s Eve can be spent in a disused meat factory, hooks and all, dancing with the ghosts of cows past. The music branches from a kind of new funk core with lots of melody even in techno and house sets but there are many different, bizarrely located places that play all kinds of music. Going out in Rotterdam, whether it be for coffee and apple pie at Dudok or dancing at the fabulous Get Back which plays only retro disco, is how I imagine it is to be Jackie Chan in Who Am I: confused but still really, really cool. Once you’ve bopped the night away (in a non-St Andrews-filled with impending regret-way), the city has an equally trendy range of budget-conscious accommodation. The Stayokay Rotterdam cube hostel offers dorms for around 25 Euros a night actually in one of Blom’s cube houses with an appropriately sleek interior and flexible bunk beds in case you need, or want, to double up. Public transport is cheap, easy and god-forbid punctual via a pre-paid OV-chipkaart which you can top-up as you visit the somewhat functionless yet impressive Euromast, the Boijmans Van Beuningen museum which has one of the leading art collections in the Netherlands and commandeer a Segway to ride around the largest European port. Timing your visit well could mean taking part in one of the many city festivals throughout the year. The biggest include the FFWD Heineken Dance Parade which parades forty floats through Rotterdam ending in a giant party with eight stages headed by Dutch and International DJs at the end of July, and the International Film Festival over twelve days at the beginning of February. The North Sea Jazz Indoor Festival is the biggest in the world, held the second weekend of July with a programme that plays host to established and new jazz artists from all over the world.
Rotterdam, in the profound words of the Vengaboys is an intercity disco, with a sense of humour and a Versaillaise pleasure ethic, without the Revolution. It’s a great place to be young and have fun and feel part of something, though that might be the intoxication. The wonderful thing is that it’s a living, working city that won’t claw at your fanny pack. The industry is more of a happy addition to a self-sustaining port city that is friendly, accessible and yet the embodiment of something very cool.
