MVRDV Celebrates Rotterdam with 180 Steps

John Hill

12. April 2016

Images courtesy of MVRDV

As part of "Rotterdam celebrates the city!" this spring, Winy Maas and MVRDV have designed a giant staircase with 180 steps leading from Stationsplein, outside Rotterdam Central Station’s entrance, to the top of the Groot Handelsgebouw, an important building from the middle of last century.

The cultural celebration and the stairs constructed from a scaffolding system mark 75 years of rebuilding in Rotterdam. According to MVRDV, "The arrival of The Stairs follows the Rotterdam tradition of celebrating reconstruction milestones," many of which lift people high above the street to give them a vantage over the city.

Those climbing the 29-meter-tall stair will reach a roof packed with a temporary observation deck, refreshment facilities, displays with information on the development of Rotterdam, and the former cinema Kriterion, which will open specially for the event to offer a wide variety of films, debates and performances.

"I used to see Rotterdam from the Kriterion after the films and it gave a fantastic overview of the city" explains Winy Maas, co-founder of MVRDV. "The roof of the Groot Handelsgebouw, one of the best buildings of the reconstruction of the Netherlands, deserves to be used as a base for the next intensification of Rotterdam. The Stairs suggest that."

Although built from scaffolding, Maas admits "It would be good to make it a permanent fixture." Perhaps that will happen if enough people climb the stairs between their opening May 16th and their closure on June 12th. One thing MVRDV's construction has going for it is the dialogue it creates with Benthem Crouwel's design of Rotterdam Central Station: the angle of the 180 steps forms a shallow "V" with the roofline of the new station and activating the plaza that fronts the station.