Rotterdam › Places and landmarks
Cube houses
Kubuswoningen
Piet Blom’s yellow houses tilted on their corners, a forest of cubes on top of a footbridge over the Blaak.
Photo: Trougnouf (Benoit Brummer), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Piet Blom built the cube houses from 1982 to 1984: 38 houses, each a cube tipped 45 degrees on its corner and set on a hexagonal pillar, so that together they look like a forest of trees. They stand on a bridge over the busy Blaak, with a street for people on foot running through underneath.
People live in them, with sloping walls everywhere, and one of them, the Kijk-Kubus, is open to visitors. The tall tower with the pointed top beside them is Blom’s too, and the Rotterdammers call it het Potlood, the pencil. Visit it in 3D ›
More in Rotterdam
City HallRotterdam’s town hall of 1920 on the Coolsingel, one of the few buildings in the centre that came through the bombing of 1940.
Erasmus BridgeThe white cable-stayed bridge over the Maas, nicknamed the Swan, which became the sign of the new Rotterdam.
Witte HuisThe white office building of 1898 by the Oude Haven, one of the first high-rise buildings in Europe.
Oude HavenRotterdam’s oldest harbour, full of old sailing barges, with terraces along its quays.
MarkthalA horseshoe arch of flats over a covered market, with the biggest artwork in the Netherlands on its ceiling.
LaurenskerkThe great late-Gothic church of the city, burnt out in 1940 and rebuilt, the last medieval building of the centre.
SchielandshuisA 17th-century classical palace among the towers, which came through the bombing of 1940.
Maritiem MuseumThe maritime museum on the Leuvehaven, with old cranes, a lightship and working boats moored outside.
De Verwoeste StadOssip Zadkine’s bronze figure with a hole torn through its body, the memorial to the bombing of 1940.
LijnbaanEurope’s first shopping street built for people on foot, opened in 1953 in the rebuilt centre.
EuromastThe tower in Het Park by the Maas, built for the Floriade of 1960 and raised to 185 metres in 1970.
The portThe biggest port in Europe, which runs some 40 kilometres from the city to the North Sea.