Het Wittehuis

A white Art Nouveau tower standing at the edge of the Oude Haven (Old Harbour), looking slightly lost among the modern architecture that has grown up around it. When the Wittehuis was built in 1898, it was the tallest office building in Europe and a sensation — people came from across the country to marvel at it. Now it barely reaches the waistline of its neighbours.

The building survived the 1940 bombing by luck of geography — it sat just outside the worst of the firestorm. Today it houses offices and a ground-floor restaurant. The Oude Haven in front of it is the historic harbour where old ships and barges are moored, making for a pleasant setting. Best appreciated from the harbour side, especially with the Cube Houses looming directly behind it — old Rotterdam meeting new Rotterdam in a single view.

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Built in 1898, the Wittehuis was Europe's first high-rise building at 43 metres tall. It survived the 1940 bombing — just barely inside the blaze boundary — and now stands dwarfed by the modern towers that surround it, a relic of a time when ten storeys was shocking.