How Rotterdam Became a Model for Sustainability

In 2020, Rotterdam pledged to invest $251 million toward sustainability efforts. Among them are the Hofbogenpark, a public space that will run along an abandoned elevated railway (like the High Line in New York City), and a “green lung” — a strip of pedestrian and bike-friendly lanes, lined with trees, that will cut through Rotterdam’s central districts. And while these urban enhancements are still years in the making, many climate-minded projects are already up and running in the Netherlands’ second city.

The revitalized harbor district, M4H, has the world’s first Floating Farm, which sells yogurt and house-churned butter. With farmland increasingly scarce, its 40 cows live in a floating stable and their feed includes spent grain from Stadshaven Brouwerij, a nearby brewery and gastropub that recently took over a 100-year-old fruit warehouse.

Another recent architectural headliner is Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen. This mirror-clad building, which opened in November 2021, houses more than 150,000 works, including old master paintings and Sottsass furniture. The storage and restoration facility for the museum next door, it’s the first such institution to make its entire collection viewable by the public. The Depot also increased the city’s green space with its 16,000-square-foot roof garden, planted with 75 birches and 20 pine trees.

The city’s best new hotels are also paragons of adaptive reuse. The Slaak, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel, was a newspaper office in the 1950s. The concrete-walled rooms are furnished with vintage typewriters and midcentury décor. Two metro stops west, an 1867 town house is now Hotel Âme, a 14-room Scandi-Japanese property with a café and home-goods store.

But the most visible symbol of the city’s push for sustainability may be Floating Office Rotterdam, a building on the river Maas. With co-working spaces, an outdoor swimming pool, and Putaine, a cheekily named club-staurant, it’s a ready-made social hub. It’s also forward-looking — the solar-powered wood structure will float, not flood, when water levels inevitably rise.

A version of this story first appeared in the April 2023 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline "Higher Ground."