Rotterdam is a city of reinvention. After the devastation of World War II— when much of its medieval center was destroyed—the busy port became a playground for experimental architecture. In recent years, bold ideas from some of the world’s biggest architects— including Dutch firms OMA and MVRDV— have transformed the skyline. I traveled to the city on a design pilgrimage last summer, part of a whirlwind tour through the Netherlands, catching up with an old friend with a real passion for art and architecture. Our destination: two of Rotterdam’s most buzzed-about buildings, the Fenix Museum of Migration and the shimmering Depot of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen—each rewriting the rules of what a museum can be.
We arrived at the Fenix on a sun-drenched afternoon, following the curve of the harbor until the hulking former shipping warehouse came into view. Today light pours through a new indoor atrium, illuminating a vast double-helix staircase twisting upward through the space like a living sculpture. The stainless-steel structure—aptly named the Tornado—rises from the ground floor and unfurls all the way up to the roof, where it continues skyward. The gleaming 100-foot spiral, designed by Chinese architect Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, has become a new city icon.
The museum itself, devoted to global migration, tells stories of departure and arrival. Once a Holland America Line warehouse, in the early 20th century, the building saw millions of immigrants boarding ships bound for the U.S. and Canada. Now, it honors that history with its marquee exhibit, “The Family of Migrants,” a photographic journey showcasing some 200 photos shot all over the world by some of the greatest photographers of the last century. As I moved from one striking image to the next—families leaving Vietnam during the war in overstuffed boats, East Berliners crossing the Wall after it fell, dockworkers waving farewell to crammed steamships—I felt as though the building itself was breathing with the collective memory of humanity on the move.
From the Fenix, I crossed the River Maas toward the Museumpark in the city center, a cultural hub that’s home to a natural history museum and the Kunsthal, a popular art center. Among the low-slung buildings, a surreal mirrored form glinted between the trees. The Depot doesn’t look like a museum at all; it resembles an enormous silver bowl, its 7,000-square-foot mirrored façade reflecting the park, the clouds and passersby into an infinite collage. Designed by Rotterdam’s own Winy Maas of MVRDV, it’s the world’s first fully accessible art storage facility—an open archive for the neighboring Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’s 154,000 works spanning the full scope of art history, from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. The idea for the space, built entirely above ground, came after a severe flood in 2021 threatened the museum’s original basement storage facility. Maas covered the building with mirrors and topped it with plants so it would disappear into the landscape.
Peeking through glass windows, we watched restoration in action, including work on the 15th-century work Three Marys at the Tomb by Jan van Eyck; 17th-century portraits of Dutch explorers and wealthy merchants; 18th-century still lifes by Dutch Baroque painter Jan Weenix; and 19th-century works of Piet Mondrian. Inside, the space feels like a surreal dreamscape, with glass staircases, floating vitrines, and glimpses of restoration labs. We also viewed a wealth of art objects, such as utensils from the Middle Ages, small devotional items and religious representations in ivory and gold, and Mexican pottery. A sculpture by Maurizio Cattelan—of a man bursting through a glass ceiling—is a sly metaphor for the Depot’s own defiance of traditional boundaries.
