For decades, Rotterdam‘s Katendrecht peninsula languished between the city’s past and future. Once a major transport hub for goods sailing toward the New World, it also processed emigrants like Albert Einstein, Willem de Kooning and Max Beckmann as they boarded the Holland America Line for America. Postwar, the immense warehouses overlooking the water formed a backdrop to the Red Light District. Recently, the disused riverbank made a pleasant place to sit and watch activity on the Nieuwe Maas river with the skyline behind, yet there was no ‘there’ there.
As the city rebuilt and innovated, the cultural foundation Droom en Daad trained its eyes on the San Francisco Warehouse, a 16,000 square metre concrete storage and trans-shipment building from 1923. A victim of the war, it had already been rebuilt in the 1950s in two distinct phases called Fenix I and II. Nabbing the latter for redevelopment, they are now unveiling the result, a museum dedicated to the art of migration. Called Fenix, it stands as the flagship scheme in the regeneration of Katendrecht and a new chapter in the city’s architectural narrative.
Transformed by Ma Yansong of Beijing’s MAD Architects, the building now sits amid a deep piazza with sightlines all the way through, thanks to new banks of glazing up the double-height space. The interior’s original raw character remains, with glossy poured-concrete flooring added to reflect fresh white walls. The architects have added grainy wood panelling and built-in seating amid the main exhibition hall.
Yet that’s all a backdrop for MAD’s grand gesture — the sort of stunt architecture Ma Yansong is known for. Anchored at the centre of the floor is a double-helix staircase in reflective steel that rises up and out of the structure. Named, unsurprisingly, the Tornado, it takes an organic spiralling path to the rooftop viewing platform pitched above the peninsula. The staircase orbits over the water on a cantilever, giving the feeling of sailing out on the river.
It offers panoramic views over the river to central Rotterdam; in return, the Tornado can be viewed by most of the city.
Fenix is the first cultural project designed by MAD in Europe and the first museum in Europe designed by a Chinese architect — which is apropos, considering Chinese merchants have occupied this peninsula for decades and the museum seeks to acknowledge and honour them.
The museum has the usual café and dining facilities, led by Michelin-star chef Maksut Aşkar. But the cultural focus will undoubtedly be the exhibitions offered across the 3,000-square-metre floor. After the opening on 16 May, three shows will debut with hundreds of historic artefacts and artworks acquired over the past several years. Max Beckmann will feature, along with Sophie Calle, Honoré Daumier, Jeremy Deller, Omar Victor Diop, Shilpa Gupta, Steve McQueen, Cornelia Parker, Do Ho Suh and many others. And an interactive installation called the Suitcase Labyrinth will feature, made up of 2,000 donated bags and trunks.
