Rotterdam is considered the architecture and high-rise city of the Netherlands. Monolab architects is not convinced and delivers a recommendation to address this in reality. The Rotterdam-based architects project a distinct tower, the City Tower, on a unusual location: right in the Maas Harbor.
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Monolab's planned 450 meter City Tower high-rise in Rotterdam.
Jan Willem van Kuilenburg, principal of Monolab Architects: "Rotterdam is too hesitant, too defensive and too much like an underdog. After the Erasmus bridge we are in need of a real skyscraper of European scale of which Rotterdam can be proud. All currently realized towers in Rotterdam are of mediocre quality and very primitive. As we should save in prosperous periods, it makes the current economic crisis the right time to invest. This new 450-meter tall skyscraper is special and at the same time pragmatic. It stands in the water.
"Conventional towers are on top of massive parkings. We shifted our tower into the harbor and realised a second project on the vacant site on top of this parking for 1,000 vehicles. This seconds project has scenografic qualities with its huge urban window and plaza towards the Maas harbor and daily sunsets. It mediates between the big scale of the tower and the surrounding city. The tower is connected with a steel pier as pedestrian boulevard to the parking and to the quay plus metro station. The skin of the tower is finished in Photovoll glass, it delivers all necessary energy. You could say we designed a true Rotterdam high-rise.... at last."
The high-rise zone, planned by the DS+V urban planning office, is extended southwards by Monoloabas, a spine for the complete city. It stretches from the Central Station District via the Kop van Zuid to the Zuidplein public transport hub and Ahoy multifunctional venue. In this zone, the City Tower is the first of a series of towers, slowly walking southward.
Source: Monolab
