Erasmushuis

The Erasmushuis stands out for its curved, cream-colored facade that wraps around the corner of the block like a smooth ship’s prow. Designed by Willem Dudok and finished in nineteen thirty-nine, this building was the first in Rotterdam to use a steel skeleton frame, allowing for massive ribbons of glass windows. During the German bombing of the city in May of nineteen forty, the building remained standing while everything around it burned to the ground, serving as a lonely island in a desert of rubble.