Architecture Rotterdam #7: Fresh perspectives, viewing the city from the top of the Laurenskerk

Laurenskerk

I had been planning this visit for a while now. My 'Rotterdampas' gives me free access to climb the tower of the Laurenskerk in Rotterdam, but the tour is only available on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Now I finally had a Saturday afternoon with nothing planned, and even though the main church building was not open to visitors due to a wedding, the tower tour went ahead.

Front view of Laurenskerk

In front of the Laurenskerk there's a nice little park area, right in the city centre. To the left in the above picture you see the statue of Erasmus, a famous philosopher from the city of Rotterdam. You might not be able to see due to picture size, but the wedding guests were arriving while I was waiting outside for the tour to begin.

Erasmus up close

This shot nicely shows the difference in building styles between the lower and upper half of the tower. Apparently, after finishing the lower half, money ran out. And building resumed only much later, explaining the difference in looks.

The tour

I had sneaked inside the church earlier, to check whether the tour would go ahead, since the church was closed for the wedding ceremony. They told me the tour was on, unless no one else showed up. So I kept my fingers crossed - I really wanted to make it to the top of the tower today. And I got lucky: more than enough people showed up and the tour went ahead.

The bald guy was our tour guide. A volunteer. He did the tour real nicely, then in the end I was in a hurry to leave and forgot to thank him. Too bad, I enjoyed his tour especially considering he was also offering his free time to show people around.

The guide took us into the church building, where the acoustics were such that he really couldn't give an intro of any sorts. So we just started by climbing the first set of steps. Till we came to the tower's first floor.

The tower's first floor. For a long time this was actually the rooftop, when money ran out to continue building.

The construction of the tower started even before the rest of the church was built, in 1449. It was almost 100 years later, in 1548, before the tower was built beyond that first rooftop point.

After getting to this first floor, we continued up the staircase of the tower only bit by bit. There was something to see after every so many steps, and it was more than an hour before we actually made it to the top. Which I had not expected at all. But it was fun to see the inside of the tower in detail.

Bells and chimes

The multiple stops we made in between was to see how the bells and chimes were organised. The first stop was at this giant music box. You know those little toys, you can turn the handle and this cylinder with tiny pins rotates and causes a melody to be played? This was the same: the pins pulled on strings which went up and moved the bells.

The giant music box

Someone from the group asked how often the tune was changed. It's only about once a year, because changing the tune requires small kids to climb inside the giant music box, undo all the bolts, replace the pins and bolt them down again. They work in turns and it takes a day. Sounds like child labor to me ;).

We went further up, and got to the bells.

You can see the strings coming up from the giant music box below. These were actually not the largest bells of the tower, we had already passed those earlier, but they were behind frames which made it difficult to get them in a decent picture.

From where the bells were, I took a picture down the staircase.

To the top

After the bells, we finally continued till we made it to the top of the tower.

Laurenskerk roof terrace

And the view was lovely. It was real fun to see the city from up high. Made everything look so very tiny, it was just like my visit to Miniworld the other week! And I could get so many of Rotterdam's architectural icons in one shot!!

In the picture below, from left to right you can see:

1. Rotterdam's main library, weird white building with blue and yellow.
2. The Pencil, the pointed apartment tower next to the library.
3. The famous cube houses, behind and to the right of The Pencil.
4. The white UFO shaped thing is the train and metro station, Rotterdam Blaak.
5. In the back, Europe's first high rise building the White House, or Westermeijer.
6. The red bridge, which I take to go home, the Willemsbrug.
7. And finally, to the right, one of Rotterdam's newest architectural assets: de Markthallen.

(Many of these buildings I've written posts about before. Check at the bottom of this article for links.)

Saturday, so market on Marktplein. And so many of Rotterdam's icons sitting together in one shot!

Close-up allows you to see the cube houses, the Westermeijer and the Willemsbrug a little better.

Different angles

I took some shots from all sides of the tower, of course. I liked that first angle best, there's so much to see. I also wanted to try take a picture of my home on Noordereiland. Being on the tower, I realised my home was hidden behind the red tower, the Red Apple. Which makes a lot of sense, because from my home window I cannot see the tower of the Laurenskerk either. I don't know why I was expecting to be able to see the other way around, defies logic of course. Might be I'm a bit low on that at times.

My home is hidden behind the Red Apple. Just next to the Red Apple, you can see the Ooms building (only for people who knows what it looks like). My home is a bit to the right of that.

Not all angles had a similarly interesting view. I still kind of liked this picture because of all the lines and shapes.

This shot I took mainly because I liked the grey building in front, with all its little roof terraces. The tall dark building in the back, that is about where Rotterdam Central Station is.

The last picture I took was the one of the World Trade Center, at the top of this post. I really love how that came out, the building with its reflective coloured glass has such a special effect. All the windows are at a slightly different angle, so the mirror reflects in bits and pieces. Because of those angles, there is only one row of windows actually reflecting the tower of the Laurenskerk. Can you find it?

Close-up of the reflecting windows of the Rotterdam World Trade Center, with one row of windows mirroring the tower of the Laurenskerk.

Thank you!

I had such an amazing time this afternoon. The tour took way longer than I thought and in the end I had to hurry down ahead of the group to make it to my next appointment in time. Which was fine with me, actually. Taking all those steps down the spiralling staircase, I was happy to get to keep my own pace and not to be stuck between someone in front and behind me.

I really loved getting this unique perspective on my city. Hope you enjoyed watching along, thanks for all and any support. Always happy to show off my city Rotterdam!

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Architecture Rotterdam

When people talk about the Netherlands, they always mention our capitol Amsterdam, but are much less aware of our second largest city Rotterdam. Which was hit very hard by World War II, and has a lot of modern architecture compared to other Dutch cities. There's a lot here worth your visit, and with these posts I hope to bring it to your attention!

Earlier posts in this series:

• Westermeijer, the first high-rise building of Europe
• Markthallen
• Willemsbrug (Red Bridge)
• Kubuswoningen
• The Red Apple

Content created by me, and Steemit original.
Camera used: Nikon D90, lens: Nikor AF-S 18-55 mm.