Colonial Ruins Under High Rise Buildings 2024
On May 14th 1940 the complete inner city of Rotterdam was destroyed by German bombs. These bombs destroyed an inner city full of traces of Dutch colonialism such as warehouses, offices, houses of admirals and shipyards. Not all of the colonial architecture was affected by the bombing, for instance Delfshaven which is a part of Rotterdam is still full of colonial traces in the sense of architecture for example a Dutch East India Company (V.O.C.) warehouse and the house Dutch East and West India Company (V.O.C. and W.I.C.) Admiral Piet Heyn was born, but by walking through the inner city you will notice almost only high rise buildings, and almost no traces left of the colonial history of the city.
How did the bombing of Rotterdam in World War Two hide the colonial traces of the city, and which are still visible?
I started this research because while growing up in Amsterdam the colonial history of the city was always very visible. Rotterdam which also had a huge role in Dutch colonialism had lost a lot of the visibility during the bombing of the city in World War Two. This sparked my interest to see which traces of a colonial period in Rotterdam would still be visible and which had been lost. To give an answer to this question: Rotterdam still has architecture deriving from coloniality, but most of this architecture is located outside of the city center because the bombing mostly affected the city center. In the center street names and monuments are the biggest visible trace, whether these are
remembering or glorifying colonial atrocities is another question that also depends on every street name.