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plenary Holland: Rotterdam
Bigger and Better After it was flattened during World War II, Rot- terdam was determined to rebuild quickly and boldly. Today, the city is known for its bridges and high-rises.
like an arrow toward the center of Rot- terdam. And that’s where my host from Rotterdam Marketing (rotterdam.info) and I headed, following the arrow’s path across the street and into The Manhattan Hotel for a coffee. The 230-room Manhattan is a strik-
ing property, tall and elegant, with more than 7,000 square feet of func- tion space. It’s connected via covered skybridge to De Doelen International Conference Centre, a meeting space and concert venue that offers three interconnected complexes of breakout rooms, foyers, and exhibit space, each one anchored by a performance-quality auditorium — 1,755-seat Large Hall, 700-seat Willem Burger Hall, and 465- seat Juriaanse Hall. From De Doelen, we walked several
blocks to Beurs–World Trade Center, a business complex that includes shops, offices, and the 37-room Congress & Event Center, with features such as 10,800-square-foot Rotterdam Hall, 11,400-square-foot Exchange Hall, and, on the 23rd floor of the building, a
24 PCMA CONVENE SEPTEMBER 2013
breathtaking event space offering pan- oramic views of Rotterdam. Standing outside on a glass-walled
balcony, staring across the skyline, revealed something jarring: Rotterdam, the second-largest city in Holland, home to the busiest port in Europe, looks much newer than it actually is. That’s because the city, founded on the Rotte river in 1270, was literally flattened by Germany during the Rot- terdam Blitz in World War II, with only a few buildings surviving. After the war, city officials were determined to rebuild quickly and boldly, and today Rotter- dam is known for its architectural mar- vels — high-rises and bridges that soar and surge against the sky. That spirit has come to define the city’s character. As more than one local told me: “We roll up our sleeves and get to work.” Another brisk walk and we were at
our final stop for the day: the Grote of Sint-Laurenskerk, a 15th-century church and the oldest building in Rotterdam. One of the few survivors of the blitz, Sint-Laurenskerk is still
Holland, N.Y. Rotterdam’s Hotel New York occupies the former headquarters of the Hol- land America Line, on Wilhelmina Pier.
used for church services, but also serves as a venue for events from 25 to 1,000 people, from conferences and receptions to seated dinners. After a relaxing dinner with Rotter-
dam Marketing, I checked into my host hotel, the Mainport, a chic waterfront property that gleams behind a glass and aluminum façade. The next morn- ing we toured the 215-room Mainport, which has nine meeting rooms spread over 2,000 square feet, many of them offering views of the harbor and the Meuse river, which, like Maastricht, Rotterdam straddles. Those views are certainly entic-
ing, so I was happy that we rode a fast-moving water taxi to our next destination, the driver gunning along the Meuse before steering us on a gradual arc that took us to the SS Rotterdam. Launched in 1958, the 750-foot, 39,000-ton ocean liner is now a permanently moored, 254-room hotel and conference venue that can accommodate groups of up to 3,500 people with 16,000 square feet of