In the exhibition ‘Maaskant Drawings’, ten Rotterdam artists each present their impression of one of the many buildings the architect Hugh Maaskant designed for the city. In their drawings Georg Bohle, Ronald Cornelissen, Inge Aanstoot, Nazif Lopulissa, Pim Palsgraaf, Sandro Setola, Sandim Mendes, Marcha van den Hurk, Marcel Swint and Eveline Visser give their own personal interpretation of a Maaskant building. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Maaskant Prize, the Rotterdam City Archives and the CBK Rotterdam aim to revive the old tradition of the city artist with this commission.
Artistic interpretation
The result is a series of ten drawings in which not only the recognisability of the buildings, but also the artist’s own artistic interpretation play a central role. In his drawing of the Groothandelsgebouw for instance, George Bohle has depicted merchants in black suits who are besieging the building like busy bees. And Eveline Visser captured the Euromast as the architect’s own dream project; like a space shuttle surrounded by clouds – an expression of the American Dream of the 1960s when the Euromast was built.
Rotterdam, the ideal source of inspiration
Until the end of the 1980s, the Rotterdam City Archives annually commissioned a number of artists to record the changes in the city. In the first decades of the Rotterdam post-war reconstructions, many artists were already busy capturing the changing city scape. In that respect, Rotterdam formed an ideal source of inspiration.
Maaskant as the architect of reconstruction
The Rotterdam architect Hugh Maaskant made an important contribution to the reconstruction of Rotterdam after the Second World War. Among his designs are the Groothandelsgebouw, the Hilton Hotel, the Euromast, the apartment buildings along the Lijnbaan and – his greatest creation of all – the Adriaan Volker House along the Maasboulevard. Maaskant had a deep respect for people who were able to convey and propagate their knowledge and love of architecture. To reward these kinds of activities, he set up the Stichting Rotterdam-Maaskant (Rotterdam-Maaskant foundation) in 1976.
After the exhibition, the drawings will become part of the Rotterdam City Archives collection. The drawings in this exhibition were made possible by the Rotterdam City Archives and CBK Rotterdam.
