Dag van de Architectuur 2014 Rotterdam

Every year, we take the opportunity to visit private buildings that are open for just one day a year, on the Dag van de Architectuur / Day of Architecture.

Our itinerary this year included:

• The new library at Erasmus MC
• De Rotterdam
• Maastoren
• Delftse Poort

After three very hectic weeks, we found ourselves too tired to wake up in time for the 11am tour at the new library, so we skipped it and went for pho instead.

Deli Tasty is a cute little Vietnamese-Asian restaurant that just opened on Meent. The food is delicious and reasonably-priced, but service is extremely slow. We only go there when we are eating at off-peak times. Lunch at 11.30am or dinner at 5.30pm, for example.

After lunch, we biked over the Erasmus bridge – with my thighs burning as usual – to De Rotterdam, the latest skyscraper in the city. It's a very impressive construction consisting of 3 huge towers of residential, office and retail lots.

Classic tandem bike found parked outside.

De Rotterdam was the only stop on our self-made tour that didn't require registration, so we had to queue to get in.

Very nice photo in the lobby. De Rotterdam is seen in the photo (the three towers side by side).

View from the full-length living room windows on the 30th floor. Amazing.

We are very high up, but the HAL cruise ship below us is also very large. So it's difficult to see just how big the distance is. You can get an idea by looking at the size of the deck chairs onboard.

These rubber stickers were found all around the apartment and I thought they were really cute. Just to show you how the room might look like with everyday things scattered around. There were also slippers, handbags and... chickens.

En route to Maastoren (behind me) and on my first outing with my new New Balance shoes!

Spent some time queueing to the registration desk till we found out that I needed my ID card, which I don't bring with me ever since getting pickpocketed twice (and paying 500 euros to replace it twice).

So Rik went up on his own and I went in search of a drink. Found a dodgy-looking eetcafe just across, but the owner was very friendly and helpful, so I felt a little better.

The cappuccino was disgusting.

But the view made up for it.

Then to the Douwe Egberts cafe at the Nationale Nederlanden building, aka. Delftse Poort, for real coffee and a saucijzenbroodje / sausage roll. I was craving pasta, but there wasn't any on the menu.

While waiting for our coffee, I spotted true Holland sprinkles – orange, blue, white and red – and we asked the barista what drink they use that on. And the answer was: "Actually... nothing!". Guess it's a leftover from some other event like Kings Day. So we requested it on my Lazy Noon. The barista was MORE than generous!

Rik helped me with the mountain of whipped cream, which turned out to be a volcano.

The tour of the Delftse Poort building was guided by a cheerful local architect. Here she is, showing a maquette of the final design choice for the building. There are 4 others next to it of proposals from other architects.

We were brought down to the car park for explanations of underground metro tubes and other boring things.

That is one long escalator, and very quick too. I like speedy escalators.

Colourful visitor's meeting area at the top of the escalators.

Recreational basketball court.

Stationsplein. The central station.

View from, I think the 31st floor.

A high-speed train pulls out of the station below.

I was still craving pasta, so we stopped by Vapiano opposite Delftse Poort for some shrimp pasta.
We ended the day with the Germany-Ghana game (2-2) on the red boat with Anselm.