The Van Nelle Factory in Rotterdam, a national heritage site since 1983, was included on the UNESCO World Heritage List last year. The factory complex consists of several connected buildings and is regarded as vital to the image of buildings from the Modern Movement of the 1920s. The many events taking place there redefine the factory’s progressive social and cultural function of the past.
The restoration of the Van Nelle Factory by Wessel de Jonge and Claessens Erdmann has given a new life to the factory complex. The transparency of the floors has been maintained as much as possible by fitting new aluminium facades on the inside. Tubes and leads are covered by new floors.
It is an environment with much light and space, and its dynamics are tangibly present. In the building where formerly coffee, tea and tobacco was produced there are now companies dealing with communication, design, architecture and media.
