Saturday June 09 2012
This city is so
wacky. I arrived here around noon after
breakfast and saying goodbye to Utrecht.
My hostel is located in the famous Cube Houses designed in the 80s by
Piet Blom, who was influenced by Aldo van Eyck, although they made radically
different work. It's the wackiest
building I've ever seen or been inside.
It's situated above a smaller train station of Rotterdam Blaak. Across the way is a large street market that
looked pretty awesome. There's lots of
construction in this city, as it's just hitting it's stride. As this is a more business oriented city of
the Netherlands, there's also a lot of tall buildings/skyscrapers, where in the
previous cities there were virtually none.
The architecture is varied and much different than Amsterdam or Utrecht
in that there doesn't seem to be a real historical precedent existing on which
to build or adapt.
I wandered around a
bit with no real purpose and ended up in the museum area. I visited the Maritime Museum, which was
appropriate as Rotterdam is the central port city of NL. It was really interesting with a lot of cool
artifacts. I also got to board and
explore the large ship that was docked outside the museum, the interior of
which they had reconstructed to give the feel of how it would be when at
sea. It was bigger than a house. Wandered on more, found myself outside the
Kunsthal by Koolhaas. It was getting too
late to enter to see the interior, but that will definitely be on my list of
things to do. Next to it is the Natural History Museum designed by Erik van Egeraat. And
a little ways down is where the Netherlands Architecture Institute, or the NAi,
is located, along with some Nieuwe Bouwen houses (a modern style). I think I'll spend at least a couple of days
at the NAi for research. Earlier in the
day I had stopped at the library on my street and was browsing some interesting
books specifically about Dutch architecture, and it gave me some new
ideas.
I was getting hungry,
so I decided to head back at this point, now that I had gotten my
bearings. Today it was incredibly windy,
a little misty, and chilly. I think the
weather is supposed to follow suit for the next few days, so I hope it's not
too unbearable. The weather I think adds
to the strangeness of the city. It's a
Saturday night and there is a soccer match between Holland and Denmark - a big
game - and all the locals are out at the bars yelling and cheering and
drinking. Otherwise, the rest of the
shops and stuff have closed down entirely, even grocery stores and some
restaurants. I don't know if it's
because it's the weekend, if it's because it's a business area, or if there's
another reason. Just very strange. Another strange thing - today as I was
walking around, for some reason I had a pang of nostalgia for the time I spent
in Italy. I don't know if it's because I
had the urge to experience the nightlife here, and in Italy I knew enough
people to be able to go out, not alone, and really have a good time. I also have an odd desire to write fiction
right now.
Anyway, these next few
days are bound to be interesting...
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