Building The Rotterdam

In 2009 the first pile was driven on Rotterdam's Wilhelminapier for what would be the largest building in the Netherlands: De Rotterdam. Designed by OMA, Rem Koolhaas' architectural firm, The Rotterdam is a vertical city of three towers on the bank of the river Maas and is the largest building to be constructed in the Netherlands as a single project. Land is scarce in the Netherlands, so the building is shoehorned onto a lot about the size of a football field along the river, once vacant land where the Holland America Line's pier stood, from which a stream of European emigrants left for Ellis Island between 1873 and 1978. Photographer Ruud Sies followed the construction workers and construction of De Rotterdam right from the first shovel of dirt at the 2009 ground breaking through to delivery in November 2013.