Rotterdam is not pretty but...

It’s a multicultural working port city and the biggest port in Europe. Germany bombed Rotterdam in 1940, flattening 98% of the city; so much of the architecture is post World War 2. Without the olde worlde buildings, it’s not as pretty or charming as The Hague or Haarlem or Delft, and so it takes me a while to find Rotterdam’s allure.

Rotterdam gets the tag ‘City of Architecture’. I can see concrete, steel and bold architectural lines. It also has the grit of a working city and has an industrial soundtrack – I can hear metal on metal clanging across the harbour. And it’s an evolving city - scaffolding and cranes are in every direction I look. The standout architecture includes the Erasmusburg (Erasmus Bridge) with its white swan neck. At the other end of the bridge, the glass side of the KPN building tilts at a sharp angle against a pole. There is a dramatic glass and red steel skyscraper called the Red Apple and the Pathe cinema is a gracefully modern angular timber building - the most attractive modern cinema building I’ve seen. I successfully seek out the Kubuswoningen or Cube Houses, residential houses designed by Piet Blom in 1984. These are 39 yellow cube shaped dwellings fixed on top of poles at an odd angle. People actually live in these unique homes (and have been for at least 20 years). One of them is part of the Stay OK Hostel chain.

It’s a cold gray day and Rotterdam definitely has little of the “gezellig” (cosy) atmosphere of the other Dutch cities I have been to, but the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is a top notch indoor space with a collection boasting names, names names. The coat room is an artwork in itself with fluorescent lights, red and white wire and steel. The coat hangers drop from the ceiling when you turn the key and are hoisted back up when you take the key out.

 Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen covers art from the 15th to the 21st century. It has work by the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516). (Quite a unique name you have there Hieronymus). There are 25 Bosch paintings in museums around the world and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has 4 of them. He was known for his ability to paint fearsome devils and monsters. See the scary devils in my photo showing detail on the Dyptych "Hell and The Flood".

Peter Bruegel the Elder’s (1525-1569) The Tower of Babel is a puller for the museum and I love this one too. It is based on the story from the Book of Genesis. The people wanted to build a tower in Babylon so tall it would reach heaven. But God thought it was a bit arrogant so sabotaged the construction process by making everybody speak a different language so they couldn’t work together and the building did not succeed. The painting by Bruegel the Elder shows a Roman looking tower emerging with over a thousand microscopic little people laboring away. I have to breathe on the painting to see each little person: Bruegel must have had exceptional vision and a steady hand to paint the detail. When I stand back, it is beautiful. My photo of it is above on the right.

The 17th century collection includes Rembrandt and his pupils, Rubens and Van Dyck. The Rubens room has an enormous Ruben’s tapestry. In the Modern Art collection, I get to see Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Kandinsky, Magritte and Salvador Dali (an odd fellow). There are Rodin sculptures and Edgar Degas’ (1834-1917) bronze ballerina sculpture ‘Little dancer’. See, I told you – names, names, names.

The museum also displays a collection of forgeries by Han van Meegeren, the most successful art forger in history. At the end of World War 2, a painting believed to be a Jan Vermeer (of Girl with the Pearl Earring fame) was found in the possession of Nazi Hermann Goring. The painting was traced back to Van Meegeren, who was arrested on suspicion of collaborating with Goring, a charge of treason which carried the death penalty. Van Meegeren admitted to having sold the painting to Goring but claimed the painting was a forgery, a forgery that he had painted himself. And thus he was not a Nazi collaborator but a Nazi swindler! The police didn’t believe his story and dared him to paint a copy of one of his fakes from prison – which he did! He received only 2 years imprisonment for forgery; became hugely well liked by the public and he totally humiliated the art world which had been fooled by his con. He was an excellent forger and used techniques and materials from the 17th century. He had previously forged Vermeer’s and Frans Hals’ and others and made himself very rich. Now, 10 of his fakes are on display at the museum. Interestingly, the Museum purchased one of the fake Vemeer’s Christ at Emmaus in 1938 for 540 000 guilders believing it to be a genuine Vemeer. The painting is in the style but not the usual subject of a Jan Vemeer – Jeez, I could have told them it was fake!

I know I haven’t got the stamina to see the massive collection of prints and drawings that the museum has (so I don’t) but I am glad I hang in there for the installation by the Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. It’s big dark rooms, with floor boards intentionally buckled, shallow swimming pools and bright white light projected onto walls making ripples like the water and creating shadows of each visitor. It’s amazing, a strange place, a perceptual experience – you have to be there I think. Everybody loves it.

So, Rotterdam is not pretty, but it is pretty unique and it’s Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is pretty awesome.