Day Eight: Wednesday April 19: (B6-L7-D4) Night 1 Rotterdam: 

In the morning, we will visit a very important 20 Century house built in 1925, the year of the great exhibition called: Exposition internationale des arts decoratifs et industriels modernes," held in Paris from April to October which will be known as the Art Deco Expo, and would give its name to the architectural and decorative movement.

The Rietveld Schröder House constitutes both inside and outside a radical break with all architecture before it, making no attempt to relate to its neighboring buildings.

"...We didn't avoid older styles because they were ugly, or because we couldn't reproduce them, but because our own times demanded their own form, I mean, their own manifestation. It was of course extremely difficult to achieve all this in spite of the building regulations and that's why the interior of the downstairs part of the house is somewhat traditional, I mean with fixed walls. But upstairs we simply called it and 'attic' and that's where we actually made the house we wanted."

Gerrit Rietveld  - 2 HSW CEU

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The ground floor is traditional, for having walls creating three sitting rooms/bedrooms and a kitchen around a central staircase. The living area upstairs, was declared an attic to satisfy the fire regulations of the planning authorities.  It widely open except for a toilet and a bathroom. Rietveld wanted to leave the upper level as it was. But his client, Mrs Schröder and her three children, felt that as living space it should be usable either opened or subdivided by the movement of sliding and revolving panels. This living area, when subdivided  has three bedrooms, the bathroom and a living room. The interesting thing, off course, is that there are multiple combinations. 

We will also visit an apartment building designed by Rietveld and look into one of lodging which is furnished as it was designed by the architect.

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We will have a short drive to the Hague on our way to Rotterdam, to visit another great museum: the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag.

The museum, a magnificent Art Deco building, designed by the Dutch architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage, was built 1931–1935. He is considered the father of Dutch modern architecture. After a visit to the US in 1911, he became influenced by F.L. Wright and helped the dissemination of Wright's ideas in Europe, and especially in Germany. 

The museum has the largest Piet Mondrian collection in the world. His last work, Victory Boogie-Woogie, is on display here. There are also works by Monet, Picasso,  Kandinsky, Sol Lewitt, Francis Bacon and Louise Bourgeois.​ 2 HSW CEU

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After we will go to the Mauritshuis, home to the very best of Dutch Golden Age painting. There you will be able to admire the famous Girl with a Pearl Earring.

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Dinner with the group. Night Rotterdam

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Day Nine: thursday April 20: (B7-L8): Night 2 Rotterdam

Central Station has had a total makeover in recent years, making the station one of the most iconic architectural features in Rotterdam. The roof over the tracks is partly covered in solar panels, continuing uninterrupted into the angled roof over the station hall. Its point aims towards the city center. A number of historic elements from the former station building (1957) by Sybold van Ravesteyn have remained intact, such as the original clock in the front façade, the letters spelling out Centraal Station (now in LED lights) and the ‘speculaasjes’, two granite sculptures on platform 1.  2 HSW CEU

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De Markthal: You'll find an indoor market hall in various world-class cities, but the combination with luxury housing makes Rotterdam's Markthal the first of its kind. The apartments are draped over the food market in a horseshoe configuration. The Markthal has about 100 fresh food stands, nearly 15 food shops and various restaurants, with a supermarket and a four-level underground car park below. As you wander among the market stands, look up to enjoy the massive artwork sprawling across the ceiling: the 'Horn of Plenty' by Arno Coenen and Iris Roskam. Thanks to this grand span of art, the Markthal has been referred to as the Dutch version of the Sistine Chapel.The Markthal also includes the Tijdtrap: an exhibition of archaeological finds from medieval Rotterdam excavated during the building's construction, now on public display for free. The Markthal is open seven days a week until 20:00. 2 HSW CEU

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The Cube Houses (or Pole Houses or Tree Houses) designed by architect Piet Blom are part of the Blaakse Bos development which borders on the Laurenskwartier district and the Waterfront area. The Kijk-Kubus (Show-Cube) is a furnished museum house, specially designed and constructed to let the visitor experience what life is like in a Cube House. 

The architect wanted to design a kind of village within the city and saw the houses as trees and the whole development area as a wood. The Cube Houses are tipped to one side, making three of the sides facing the ground, and three facing the sky. Small-scale businesses, shops, a school and a children’s playground are on the traffic-free promenade below. 2 HSW

Dinner on your own  

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Day Ten: Friday April 21: (B8-L9) Night 3 Rotterdam:

We will visit the Maeslant storm surge barrier, the last part of the Dutch Delta Works with the world’s largest movable barrier. This impressive construction cannot be described in words, only experienced, which why we will be going to see how the Dutch protect their land. Over 30% of it is below see level. A third of wind mills you see all over the country were mostly to power a pumping system to prevent floods. The other were mustard mills, hemp mills, grain mills, snuff mills, cocoa mills, oil mills, chalk mills, paint mills and saw mills.

The Delta Works was started in 1953 after several dykes gave way under a violent storm that killed over 1850 people. Our visit will make us understand what happened and how a similar problem could be solved and will introduce us to some amazing construction and technological wonders. 2 HSW CEU

We will also visit Kinderdijk, which demonstrate how the Dutch have been living, struggling, and working with the water that defines their country. The famous polders used to be soggy peat bogs, which would return to that state as soon as draining these lands stopped.

The people in that region, mostly below sea levels, have been working hard to keep their feet dry since the thirteenth century, when count Floris V of Holland, and ordered the establishment in 1277, of one of the Netherlands’ oldest water boards, in order to secure and maintain the dykes surrounding the Alblasserwaard area. 

There are 19 windmills, 2 of them being like a museum, to understand how important that technology was for the inhabitants survivals.

Dinner on your own. Night in Rotterdam

Day Eleven: Saturday April 22: (B10-L11-D4) Night 4 Rotterdam  

We will visit the DEPOT, a huge bowl covered with reflecting material, housing the world’s first publicly accessible art storage facility, designed by the architectural firm MVRDV. It is the first building in the world that makes a museum’s entire collection public while also providing behind-the-scenes glimpses of how a museum works. In addition, it provides space to store private and corporate collections. The Depot is a gesamtkunstwerk and a new design icon for Rotterdam. 2 HSW CEU

Kunsthal Rotterdam is housed in a striking building designed by Rotterdam's OMA/Rem Koolhaas architectural practice and was opened in 1992. Since then, the Kunsthal has put culture in the widest sense of the word on show, from elitist to popular. There are always a number of exhibitions to see, both large and small-scale, from old masters to contemporary art, from innovative design to engaging photography. 2 HSW CEU

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Sonneveld House Museum, situated on the edge of Museumpark in Rotterdam, is one of the best-preserved homes built in the Dutch Functionalist style. It was designed in the 1930s by architecture office Brinkman and Van der Vlugt, renowned for the Van Nelle Factory and Feyenoord Stadium. They also worked on the interior in close collaboration with W.H. Gispen. Sonneveld House shows how a prominent Rotterdam family embraced modernism, and how that choice coloured their everyday surroundings. The interior has been enriched with art and utensils acquired through donations, purchases and loans. A ‘designer-in-residence’ programme invites contemporary designers to respond to the house and interior with present-day design interventions.

Sonneveld House, which enjoys national heritage status, was opened to the public in 2001 after undergoing restoration work to recreate the original condition of the house and interior. Sonneveld House has, however, enjoyed a long history and been home to various residents. Above all else, the museum had to reconstruct the house of the Sonnevelds and offer a glimpse of how they lived there at the time. The benchmark for the restoration was therefore the condition of house when it was completed in 1933. Alterations made to the house while it was occupied by the Sonneveld family were also regarded as authentic. All alterations made after the family’s departure have been reversed.

Sonneveld House adheres not only to the principles of Functionalism but also to the five points that Le Corbusier formulated in his book Vers une architecture (1921). Les pilotis: the core of the building stands on columns, free from the ground. Le toit-jardin: balconies and roof terraces form the transition between inside and outside.  Le plan libre: the skeletal structure creates an open floor plan without load bearing walls. La façade libre: the façades are not load bearing. 2 HSW

Dinner with the group - Night 5 in Rotterdam  

Day Twelve: sunday April 23: (B9) 

Take a 20 minutes train ride to go to the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. (AMS) or we will drive you. You should be home by late afternoon.