There was an exhibition of the works of the audio-visual artist Roji Ikeda, who makes very large-screen sound and visual installations, inspired by data arrays and interstellar research. They were visually mesmerizing. The music was electronic, lots of blips and thumping bass.
Some still images:
After Vera went to Milan, I went to Rotterdam. I had a reason for going to Rotterdam, which is normally not on anyone's list of travel destinations. In the 1960's, when my family lived in Brussels, we would travel to the US every summer, and on our return, we would take the ocean liner SS Rotterdam to return to Europe. This was time when it was still considered somewhat normal to take a ship across the ocean in order to get to Europe. We did this three times on the SS Rotterdam. Recently, I discovered that the ship still existed, and was in fact a hotel, docked in the harbor in Rotterdam. I could not resist the idea of revisiting my past, and so I booked two nights on the ship. And I did feel a wave of emotion when I saw the ship; it looked beautiful, and is much smaller than today's floating hotels. The exterior was exactly the same, and although much of the interior had been redecorated since my time, it all felt very familiar. I had a cabin with a porthole, much like the one we would have had back in the 60's.
The center of the city of Rotterdam was destroyed by German bombing in World War II, and the Dutch, rather than reconstruct the old city, decided to rebuild it in an entirely new, modern way. Thus it has wide streets, open spaces, and in general looks like a newer American city, though with more emphasis on pedestrian spaces than on automobile spaces. Its only redeeming feature these days is the impressive amount of adventurous modern architecture which has been built, mostly recently. I visited the "cube" houses, built by architect Piet Bloom in the 1980's. These are apartments, each in the shape of a cube, but with the corners facing down. Luckily there is an exhibit where you can go inside one of them. Peculiar living spaces, to say the least.
You can get disoriented:
Inside:
There is a giant new market hall, which is built in a kind of U shape, with apartments all around it.
Inside, it has a painted ceiling:
The public library:
In the area:
"Dude Haven"
Rotterdam is a huge port city, and I took a boat tour around the harbor. I confess that I find the docks, cranes, and piles of different colored ship containers to be visually intriguing, especially in the late afternoon light. More pictures than you want...
This is the 1930's built ventilation tower for a tunnel under the river.
The SS Rotterdam from the water:
New skyscrapers on the water:
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