The Lijnbaan (Rotterdam): a Prototype of a Postwar Urban Shopping Centre

Two structures attract particular attention in postwar Rotterdam. They are the Groothandelsgebouw (Wholesale Building), by the architect H. A. Maaskant, and the Lijnbaan shopping centre. The idea for the Groothandelsgebouw originated during the war when a large number of businesses lost their premises through bombing. The model was the Merchandise Market in Chicago, which was at that time the largest commercial building in the world. The idea of allowing lorries to drive into the building was, incidentally, also adopted from there. By Dutch standards the Groothandelsgebouw is built on a mammoth scale. Elevations 200 metres long and seven storeys high were unusual at that time in The Netherlands. The typology and architectural appearance of the building betray something of the intentions of the rebuilding plan for the city centre of Rotterdam, which was still being worked on in 1947 when Maaskant designed the Groothandelsgebouw. The building is based on the assumption that the new centre would be filled with large, free‐standing building blocks. There is even a hint of a kind of nostalgia for an almost nineteenth-century closed townscape.