Hospitality Design: On Location, Rotterdam

Published in Hospitality Design, February 2020 issue

Often in the shadow of big sister Amsterdam, Rotterdam has come into its own over the last decade as the Netherlands’ edgy and accessible city, as well as a visual wonderland. After all, it’s had to rise from the ashes of a wartime bombing that leveled some 30,000 buildings, tragically leaving behind a blank canvas that was prime for progressive art, architecture, and design. “Rotterdam is a very atypical Dutch city,” says Eveline van der Pluijm, manager of the city’s convention bureau and tourism board. “With its eclectic architecture, Rotterdam has a strong and distinctive character that sets it apart from others. One need only look at the second city’s growing hospitality scene for evidence.

Among recent hotel openings is the vibrant Room Mate Bruno, where Teresa Sapey + Partners revamped a 19th-century Dutch East India Company warehouse—one of the few buildings to survive WWII. Then there’s Culture Campsite, an innovative program that launched last year as a sort of campground-meets-sculpture park: Ten sleeping quarters hide inside quirky, small-scale structures set within an urban park in central Rotterdam.

Projects on the boards tease what’s to come, such as a 5-star MGallery by Sofitel in the Rijnhaven district; the Sax, a mixed-use high-rise with a hotel component by MVRDV; and the POST Rotterdam, a revitalization of a historic building that survived the Rotterdam Blitz. ODA New York is spearheading the redesign, featuring a 226-room Kimpton hotel and residential tower addition.

City Hub

Aimed at the tech-savvy traveler, this capsule hostel relies on connectivity and guest wristbands for everything from checking in and unlocking sleep pods to purchasing self-serve beer on tap. Read the rest in Hospitality Design’s digital edition.

The Slaak

Built in the 1950s during Rotterdam’s reconstruction, the Het Slaakhuys originally housed Dutch newspaper Het Vrije Volk until 1976, a past integral to its conversion into the Slaak. Read the rest in Hospitality Design’s digital edition.

Supernova Hotel

Hip but unpretentious, this recent property reads more like a cozy home than a hotel, with living room–like common spaces and 38 rooms sporting elements such as a loft bed, balcony, or split-level floorplan, and varied furnishings and objects, from a dining table and wire-framed shelves to vinyl record players and leather couches. Read the rest in Hospitality Design’s digital edition.

Hotel Chicago

Scheduled for 2022, this hotel originally had an ambitious concept of two volumes connected by a floating swimming-pool bridge with a transparent bottom—making every passerby a voyeur. Read the rest in Hospitality Design’s digital edition.