Rotterdam ROCKS!, a €240m (£205m) visitor attraction designed by MVRDV, the firm behind London's Marble Arch Mound, has been unveiled as the winner of a major architectural competition intended to create "a new world wonder". The project, a pile of artificial "rocks" stacked in a tottering cairn, aims to inspire visitors to live sustainably, but critics have already dismissed it as a costly vanity bauble.
Design and Concept
The renderings depict a towering cairn wreathed in foliage and originally included a waterfall, which has since been quietly aborted. The project is the brainchild of Dutch entrepreneur Don Ritzen, who made his reputation through Rockstart, a venture capital fund for green tech startups. Ritzen's non-profit organisation Shift provided the impetus for the landmark building, which will be constructed on a site previously earmarked for football club Feyenoord's new stadium.
Rotterdam ROCKS! will anchor the Waterkant, a large-scale urban development on the south bank of the Maas. The project incorporates a hotel, conference centre, food court and viewing deck, alongside an immersive experience called the Elysium, which will illustrate paradigms for sustainability and circular living.
Criticism and Concerns
One online commentator unflatteringly compared the design to "something Shrek would throw up". The project has also drawn criticism from Wouter Vanstiphout, a leading Dutch architectural historian, who said: "It is as if MVRDV has allowed the entire fundamental contradiction between architecture and sustainability to implode in a gesture of ontological self-loathing, a metaphorical ruin of the very idea of architecture, collapsing under its own weight, gnawed at and overgrown by a nature that has turned against humanity out of spite."
The project's predecessor, the Marble Arch Mound, was beset by cost overruns, shonky construction and visitor apathy, with its patchy turf described by one critic as "more like an ensemble of ill-matched carpet tiles than a greensward".
Impact and Irony
Rotterdam ROCKS! was unveiled during Europe's summer heatwave, when wildfires highlighted the existential consequences of the climate crisis. Nearly all of Rotterdam lies below sea level, and over half of the Netherlands is vulnerable to flooding, leading to speculation that the project may one day be under water.
The project is expected to charge visitors entrance fees between €20 and €45, with the aim of inspiring them to spread a new green gospel. However, in an era when "the greenest building is the one that already exists", the idea of constructing a hugely costly vanity bauble seems like a stupendous misfire.
