Groundbreaking scheduled on OMA's De Rotterdam
13 July 2009
What will become the largest building in the Netherlands, the € 340 million De Rotterdam, a complex of three interconnected mixed-use towers designed by OMA, will "finally" go under construction in December this year, according to a statement by the developers MAB and OVG.
The design for De Rotterdam started in 1997 and OMA founder Rem Koolhaas said, "It's a miracle that construction will finally begin. One of the positive outcomes of the economic crisis is the drop in the cost of materials and construction, which has given new energy to long running projects like this one."
The project is located in the old harbour district of Wilhelminapier, next to the city's iconic Erasmus bridge. The three 150 m-high stacked towers will have a gross floor area of about 160,000m2, making De Rotterdam the largest building in the Netherlands.
The towers are part of the ongoing redevelopment of Wilhelminapier.
De Rotterdam is named after one of the ships on the Holland America Line, which used to depart from the Wilhelminapier, carrying thousands of Europeans emigrating to the US.
The project is led by OMA partners Rem Koolhaas, Ellen van Loon and Reinier de Graaf and the associate in charge is Kees van Casteren.
Completion is expected in 2013.
