You can’t really go to Rotterdam and not stop by the Kijk-kubus (Cube Houses), a mixed-use project designed by Piet Blom in 1984. The tilted signs on the streets and walls nearby hint at what’s to come.

 

Remember the last pic I posted in yesterday’s entry? This is what’s behind the boat that was behind me:

This entire complex has retail/offices on the ground floor and cube residences on the upper floor.

 

Once I’m standing inside the complex and finally stop twisting my neck to make the cube houses look “straight,” I take in the view around this structure:

 

Then it’s time to head inside one of the cube residences which is now a museum. Even the ticket is funny:

 

When I first go up the narrow stairs to the first floor, it doesn’t feel too strange. It’s just like any contemporary and compact apartment. But then the crookedness starts to show up in angles everywhere…walls, roofline, windows. There’s not a single straight wall in this space.

 

Upstairs, on the top floor, in the sunroom I enjoy the whimsy of it all, especially the view of the rooftops…

 

and I wonder if you can see stars overhead at night, or maybe just the lights of the city around you. I ask myself whether it’s more challenging to live in this cube house or in the windmill I saw at Kinderdijk. Either way, it’d be tough to find enough storage for all my shoes!