From Zuidplein to Central Station

With color and humour, the three artists from Kunst & Vaarwerk struck back from the XNUMXs to the harsh urbanity of gritty Rotterdam: with enough paint, a pillar can simply be The Free People. That bravado is also matched by the newspaper headline that describes Rotterdam as the largest world port.

Of course, the Spanish Wikipedia has a whole page about Station Zuidplein, because here you can still see the last political Chilean murals. In the XNUMXs, so-called painting brigades of Chilean refugees filled Rotterdam with protest art against Pinochet's coup. Mayor Van der Louw participated in demonstrations against the military dictatorship.

Sometimes the most special art is hidden in corners and alleys. This woman cries in stone because the occupier executed twenty people on March 12, 1945 as a reprisal for an act of resistance.

Rotterdam is not a city of equestrian statues, as it turns out here: when there is finally a rider, it falls off the horse. The statue was not designed as a war memorial, but because of the depicted fear it was purchased for that reason and placed as a memorial.

When Holslag was asked for 'a reflection on 20th-century man', she decided that it was mainly in a hurry. Walking briskly, these two townsfolk, he in a turquoise suit and she in a saffron yellow summer dress, will collide at Strevelsweg. Even the slanted pedestals move along with the speed.

Due to the demolition of a row of houses, a number of houses became too exposed and Tordoir designed an artistic protection based on West African textile motifs. He also used it to make tea towels as a gift for local residents, who have since been able to dry the dishes with a work of art.

Some passers-by will not even notice, but in this rarely ad-free metro station, the lighting is adjusted in such a way that the color yellow disappears. It creates a fleeting surreal moment in the hurried life of commuters.

Sprayed inconspicuously green, a camouflage in the park, this statue is an ode to the idler. The apparently lying Pinocchio was in the center and is now a counterweight here in South against the port area formed by activity. Maybe to say: do nothing for once.

At the official unveiling of this fountain, a group was watching flat water: the fountain did not work. It is in fact an 'objet trouvé', an existing drainpipe that the artist designated as a fountain. He also doesn't know when this one will do it. And it is precisely that element of surprise that is fun for local residents, but makes it unsuitable for city marketing and gentrification purposes.

They were fun 'ball-playing figures' as sculptor Ek van Zanten had called this design. But when the municipality announced it wanted a monument for workers, he replaced the ball with a block of basalt and now they are commemorating the heavy manual construction of the ports. The statue is located on the Delta dike, which was built around 1960 in response to the flood disaster of 1953.

No, the client found that too confrontational at the time to put the letters ZUID in neon on the roof. At that time, the term was still synonymous with problem neighbourhoods. Körmeling then chose 1989, the year of construction of this flat, as is often stated on buildings. You often see that as a facing brick, but never in the form of such a gigantic neon advertisement. The year also functions as a time clock: the more years pass, the more this work of art belongs to the past.

Walk through the glass doors of the Galleria to this square of West8, past the bronze Wilhelmina, and enter through the small door this cold steel refuge, as the title indicates. Oppressive? It is therefore an art commission for the adjacent court and tax office.

Artists do not like authority, as this image also proves. It is named after a 1967 protest rally of the same name by artists and rock bands in San Francisco against the establishment. These sculptures are also gathering around the corner of the court.

With no fewer than 14 floors, this flat was the tallest residential building in the Netherlands in 1956 and the only high-rise building on the Maas. This eye-catcher was given a relief at the entrance with ships, port equipment and mermaids. On the north side came a sea god with a trident. Everything modern Cubist executed as if it were a kind of harbor Picassos.

With the emergence of the plastic era, Pop Art and Minimal Art behind him, Droppert designed these colorful poles, which expand as if they have eaten a pig or are pregnant. In this way they emphatically distinguish themselves from the gray underlying architecture for which they were really designed.

Climbing, these career tigers try to reach the top via the oil barrels, but the title (cascade means waterfall) reveals their imminent fall. This ode to Rotterdam, the world's largest oil port, is immediately a handsome anti-capitalist image here in the middle of the business centre.

This giant welder is an ode to the giant job of the construction of the first metro in the Netherlands, above the stairs on the right you can see his helmeted head between sparks and flames. A sculpture by André Volten was rejected because it would clutter the hall. A light work by Johan van Reede did appear at the other exit.

Wenckebach made a whole series of images of this bourgeois man, a cliché from the days when you went shopping and strolled in the fashionable big city. On his own staircase, he looks smugly down on the Coolsingel, which will be redeveloped in 2021.

After the war, one type of company did have money for new premises: banks. Such as this richly decorated bank building with symbols of trade, livestock, industry and prosperity around the entrance. But look away from this and you see images of war on the eaves of death, madness and an emaciated child. The rest of the facade also has remarkable ornaments, such as the coat of arms of Amsterdam.

This personification of prosperity originally hung on a bank building on the Blaak. She has a dove of peace in her hand and leans on a sower, blacksmith and plowman. But the nicknames showed that it was not the reconstruction symbolism that stood out most in this 'Nakie van het Blakie' or 'Bank-Bil-Jet'.

You see a lot of female nudity in art, but you don't find such an impudently naked little guy. Yet this caricatural figurine is chock-full of art-historical references to the Baroque and dancers by Degas. It stands in a so-called 'pocket park' that serves almost nothing and that suits this bronze hustler who makes himself bigger than he is.

During the Second World War, Tajiri fought as an American soldier in Europe, stayed here, settled in the Limburg village of Baarlo, where he left behind so many statues that it was given a route of knots. You can see those knots as symbols of connection, embrace, harmony, but also of problems, struggles, bondage. "Nothing can go wrong with the interpretation of that," said Tajiri, "A knot is a knot."

The creations of the Russian constructivist Gabo symbolized a better world, but here on the Coolsingel it mainly resulted in a practical improvement: in a conflict about the so-called building line of the new shop building, the Bijenkorf installed this work of art. Problem solved. The executive engineers had a hard time with it, but it resulted in a worldwide unique work of art.

Three days of celebrations accompanied the unveiling of this politically charged statue in 1867, a victory for the advocates of free trade. Van Hogendorp was their leader and co-author of the constitution. The statue remained in the spotlight thanks to shopkeeper protests, clean-ups by admiring economics students, and it was consumed annually by Christmas tree markets – also free trade.

Rain or shine: every Wednesday at 12 o'clock sharp, a man in a cap takes out a horn and yells 'It's Never Too Late to Say Sorry', after which everyone has to figure out for themselves who should say sorry and to whom.

Some art assignments are almost impossible to do. The Swiss insurer, which once occupied this office building, demanded a mosaic depicting the cities of Basel and Rotterdam, along with the Rhine, plus Erasmus on horseback, based on a 16th-century print. The fact that the result still looks so good proves what a talent this artist had.

The artist described this image as 'an attempt to play with thoughts and planes', but at the same time this abstract composition was a combination of the S and B from the logo of the Slavenburgbank that was then located in this building. That bank no longer exists as such, but the artistically disguised logo does.

This war memorial shows the past (the grieving woman) and the future (the child) with two figures from the present in between. The words 'stronger through struggle' on the plinth became Rotterdam's motto after Wilhelmina, who unveiled this statue, pronounced it.

This abstract celebration of the harbor city full of bridges and cranes is an innovative sgraffito made with a glue-based paint, applied in mirror-polished concrete panels. It gained cult status among graffiti fans as an early example of 'subway art'. Are the graffiti tags perhaps more of a declaration of love than vandalism?

Scheepvaartbedrijf Van Ommeren celebrated its centenary in 1939 and wanted to give Rotterdam a gift, but then the war came. It wasn't until 1955 that the fountain was unveiled with eight stone land and water creatures full of decorative drama, such as a crocodile eating a duck and a squid grabbing a fish.

Because he thought his hands were too small, De Kooning put on three pairs of gloves before starting to sculpt some figurines. Once enlarged, an idea of ​​fellow sculptor Henry Moore, his thumbprints in these somewhat aggressive female sculptures even became gigantic.

Sculptor Couzijn was given a free hand by Unilever and designed this abstract sculpture that seems to float. Only that title, The Manipulator, was too negative for the company. That is why it is now called Corporate Entity. Made of 18.000 kilos of bronze, it is probably the largest bronze statue ever cast in the Netherlands.

People often appear to be shocked by what appears to be a terrible accident. But luckily, it's just art. The art scene was only small in Rotterdam, but with this kind of Pop Art-like contributions, Rotterdam was at the forefront.

Art cannot get more Rotterdam: a Phoenix, the firebird that became a symbol for Rotterdam after the bombing. And then also made of steel, the material of the port. Timmer visited the workshop where the Bijenkorf statue of Gabo was made and did not like the construction, but stylistically his Phoenix seems to have been inspired by it.

'I'm not looking at a meter' said the ambitious reconstruction artist Louis van Roode boldly at the completion of this facade artwork, which was the largest artwork in Europe. The multicolored sculptural glass-in-concrete windows were his idea, which gave this national monument the nickname 'Post Cathedral'. The 22 windows color the stairwell in all shades of the rainbow. Inside, another 15 artists have applied 34 wall paintings, sculptures and mosaics.

Ideally, architect Van Ravesteyn wanted a work of art by Henry Moore for his station building, but that was too expensive. Then his own employee JH Baas just designed two abstract decorative sculptures himself, they are popularly called 'Speculaasjes'. Afterwards they were so appreciated that they were replaced on the platforms of the new station building. There they also return as a pattern in the interior.

The Association of the Dutch Brick Industry presented the then new Bouwcentrum with a gift. Each of these 16.000 bricks is custom made by hand. Weekly photos were sent to Moore during the bricklaying, who returned comments by letter. No.1 implies a series, but it has remained with this one relief. The wall has now been incorporated into the new building.