10 Rotterdam artists drew Maaskant

In honor of the 40 anniversary of the Maaskant Prize, Rotterdam City Archives and CBK Rotterdam invited 10 Rotterdam artists to give an impression of one of the many Maaskant buildings in the city. With this assignment, the City Archives and CBK Rotterdam want to revive an old tradition of city artists. Until the end of the 80, Rotterdam City Archives gave annual assignments to artists to document the changes in the city. In the first decades of the Rotterdam reconstruction, many artists were already busy recording the changes in the city. Rotterdam was the ideal source of inspiration in that regard. The 10 drawings can be seen in the exhibition from 16 November Maaskant signed in the Kunsthal. They will then be included in the Rotterdam City Archives collection.

Who was Hugh Maaskant?

The Rotterdam architect Hugh Maaskant made an important contribution to the reconstruction of Rotterdam after the Second World War. He designed, among other things, the Groothandelsgebouw, the Hilton hotel, the Euromast, the apartment buildings on the Lijnbaan and - his last great creation - the Adriaan Volkerhuis on the Maasboulevard. Maaskant had great respect for those who were able to transfer and propagate their knowledge of and love for architecture. To reward these types of activities, he founded the Rotterdam-Maaskant Foundation in 1976.

Rotterdam artists

Georg Bohle, Ronald Cornelissen, Inge Aanstoot, Nazif Lopulissa, Pim Palsgraaf, Sandro Setola, Sandim Mendes, Marcha van den Hurk, Marcel Swint en Eveline Visser signed various Maaskant buildings. In addition to the recognisability of the building, the drawing also had to give space to the artists' own artistic interpretation.

Different perspectives

The result is a series of 10 drawings in which the artists have depicted the building from their own style and personal experience or memory. Looks like this Georg Bohle the Wholesale Building as a place where traders in black suits storm the building like busy bees. Eveline Visser recorded the Euromast, according to her a dream project of the architect himself. She gave the title to her drawing Maas side in the clouds. She depicts the crow's nest as a space shuttle amidst clouds, as an expression of the American Dream in the '60. Marcha van den Hurk drew the Hilton Hotel as a repetition of architectural structures. The 10 drawings are included in the Rotterdam City Archives collection after the exhibition.

The drawings in the exhibition have been made possible by the City Archives and CBK Rotterdam.