World famous cube houses attract junk and tourists

It is just eleven o’clock when this Saturday morning on the narrow staircase of the Rotterdam cube house on Overblaak number 70, around sixty Malaysians squeeze up. Moments later they are on the second floor, in the bedroom of resident Ed de Graaf. Close together, they look at his bed with brown comforter. On four screens that hang on the first floor at the cash register, De Graaf from behind a table follows all movements in the building. “I always have to be careful that tourists do not crawl into my bed or take things from the kitchen.”

The 71-year-old De Graaf is the owner and director of the Kijk-Kubus Museum Home. After the purchase of the building in 1984 – for an amount of 128,000 guilders – first inhabitant De Graaf started working as a suppoost in his own house. A demanding job. Especially since the opening in 2014 of the nearby Markthal, there is a storm. More than a million visitors, largely from abroad, came to De Graaf after payment of the standard entrance fee of 3.50 euros.

Every house a tree

The house is in the middle of the so -called Blaakse Bos of Rotterdam. That stone forest of 38 yellow cube -shaped pile houses and 18 business spaces has grown into a distinguished tourist attraction in the more than forty anniversary. The Stadsbos – every house is a tree – has become the innate Rotterdam neighborhood that the Amsterdam architect Piet Blom in mind. “The already growing cities in the world will be inhabited village,” said a spell of Blom that hangs at the entrance.

Nevertheless, the tree dwellers are shocked to see that their habitat has also exerted more and more attraction on wild puddles, graffiti ladders, dumpers of bicycle wrecks and outdoor sleepers. “The area does not exactly look florissant,” said councilor Tim de Haan (D66) last Thursday during an emergency debate he requested in the Rotterdam city council. After reporting in the local press about the deterioration of the area, the council members discussed the environment in the ‘Blaakse Bos’. “Is this now the calling card that we want to hand in as Rotterdam? The litter is blowing around,” De Haan noted.

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Anti -pla

The responsible alderman for the outdoor space in the city, Pascal Lansink-Bastemeijer (VVD), is also concerned about the disposal of the Bos of Blom. In the council meeting, he pointed out that the spaces around the pole houses are being sprayed clean four times a week. Waste bins are emptied twice a day and graffiti is removed in ‘the public space’.

Nevertheless, the alderman wants to do more “in the short term”. Anti-lake screens must be placed in the sneaky corners of the pole forest. Supervisors will more often hold ‘wake -up rounds’ to tackle outdoor sleepers. And ‘once’ ‘the municipality will also take care of the removal of graffiti on private homes.

A day later, the municipal cleaning has already started the cleaning, De Graaf says. The brown human slurry that could still be seen this week on the Site of the NOS was sprayed away. “It now smells like Citronella.”

But by the way, the alderman has experienced himself with a Jantje-van-Leiden, says De Graaf, who is also chairman of the Association of Owners of the Blaakse Bos. “The fact that only one -off graffiti is removed because the houses are private ownership is not correct. The daubing is on the viaduct, at the stairs and on concrete planters. These are public spaces where the municipality must take care of cleaning.” And the count has never noticed that waste bins are emptied twice a day.

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No Switzerland

The tourists say that they do not understand the municipal debate on pollution when asked. Whoever you ask – Venezuelans, Bulgarians or Americans: Rotterdam is strikingly clean in the eyes of foreign visitors, you always hear. “It is not as clean in Rotterdam as in Switzerland, but it is nowhere in the world,” says Marty Maya from Zug in Switzerland. “In India it’s dirty. Not here.”

The Italian Annamaria Chiaruttini is also very satisfied. “Rotterdam is a very clean city, certainly compared to my hometown Trieste. There it is getting dirtyer because there is no more money for cleaners or police officers.”

Cecile de Vos lives in Rotterdam-Noord. She likes to come to the Blaakse Bos to show the place to visitors from outside the city. She even slept one night in the hostel that is located in a large cube house. “I really wanted to sleep in a cube house once.” According to her, the spraying of dirty spots and the approach of vagrants is only symptom control. “You also see more and more outdoor sleepers at the Museum Park. If you really want to solve the problems, I think there should be more reception places in the city.”

Ed de Graaf, who listens to the compliments of foreign visitors, honestly finds the fuss about the deterioration of the cube houses “a bit exaggerated.” He also never hears tourists complaining about it. “People look up in this forest and not at the Pishoekjes.”

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