Why go
The Nieuwe Maas connects the city’s riverside setting with its role as a seaport. Rotterdam also offers a useful architectural contrast with older Dutch centres: wartime destruction opened the way for rebuilding, including high-rise buildings and work by architects such as Rem Koolhaas and Piet Blom.
What to look for
- The Nieuwe Maas places the city within the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta.
- High-rise buildings reflect Rotterdam’s extensive rebuilding after the Second World War.
The full story
Rotterdam grew around a dam in the Rotte, built in 1270. The settlement received city rights in 1340 and gradually developed into a trading and transport centre. Water explains that growth. At the North Sea end of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, the port links sea routes with waterways reaching deep into western Europe, including Germany’s Ruhr region. The Second World War changed the appearance of the city centre profoundly. The Rotterdam Blitz destroyed much of it, and rebuilding produced a varied architectural landscape rather than a continuous historic core. That history helps explain why the skyline differs so sharply from the canal centres of Amsterdam or Delft. The river and the architecture tell connected stories: one concerns the movement of goods, the other the reconstruction of the city that grew around that trade.