We’ve developed a bit of a tradition: after celebrating Christmas with family in Cologne, we take a small sightseeing detour through Belgium (read about our visit to the Tintin Museum there) or the Netherlands on our way back to Berlin. Last year, we stopped in Rotterdam again and finally booked a guided tour of the Van Nelle Factory. As fans of modernist architecture, this has been high on our travel wish list for a while. The buildings aren’t just a striking example of industrial modernism; they have also been part of the UNESCO World Heritage since 2014.
New Objectivity in Rotterdam
Included in our ticket for the Van Nelle Factory tour was the entry to the Chabot Museum in Rotterdam. Before our visit, we had never heard of the Dutch artist Henk Chabot, but we found ourselves quite drawn to his gloomy expressionist paintings and sculptures. The museum is housed in a small white villa, built in the style of New Objectivity. Interestingly, the architects were influenced by the architectural team that is also behind the Van Nelle Factory.
That’s why the museum also has a small architecture exhibition in the downstairs rooms. Reading the small-print panels, we exchange a few words with other nerds and wonder whether we will meet them again at the afternoon tour (we didn’t).
And the museum does regularly screen a short film about the man who commissioned the Van Nelle Factory in the 1920s. For us, this provided a very welcome introduction to the tour later in the afternoon.
A vision in steel and glass
The young director Cees van der Leeuw had a radical vision. He didn’t want a dark, stuffy factory but something light, clean, and revolutionary. After spending a month in the United States visiting over 30 factories, he returned inspired with a new structural idea: mushroom pillars. These are steel-reinforced concrete supports that carry the ceilings independently from the exterior walls.
When van der Leeuw returned with his inspirations, construction at his new factory building was already underway. But he could convince his architectural bureau, the Brinkman & Van der Vlugt office, to readjust the plans. The architects may have been the more willing as it allowed them to toy with some innovations and enabled the factory’s stunning glass façade. Apart from the main architect, Leendert van der Vlugt, Mart Stam, whom we encountered at the Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart, was for some time also part of the architectural team.
A brief history of the Van Nelle Company
The Van Nelle Company dates back to the 18th century. It started out as a small shop selling coffee, tea, and tobacco – exotic import goods from the colonies. For instance, Belgium introduced coffee growing in Rwanda, which was a Belgian colony for some time – today, Rwandan coffee is a major economic factor for that country. As demand grew, the founder, Johannes van Nelle, sold the business to the Van der Leeuw family in 1845. The new owners expanded operations by establishing their own plantations in Dutch West India. In 1916, recognizing the need for a large production facility in the Netherlands, they purchased a large site near the Schie waterway in Rotterdam.
The young director was charged with building a modern factory that would reflect the company’s forward-looking vision. And indeed he did. In the beginning, the company did use the premises to process and pack colonial goods such as coffee, tea, and cocoa. With the loss of the colonies later in the 20th century, the factory also produced other items such as chewing gum and yoghurt. Today, the UNESCO-listed building is no longer a working factory, but a space for creative industries.
First impressions of the Van Nelle Factory
We arrive at the Van Nelle Factory by public transport on a chilly winter afternoon. Since it is a holiday, the industrial area is very quiet. A small pond near the prominent white glass façade echoes with the calls of geese. How enchanting, we think at first, but their scattered droppings are less charming. Avoiding stepping into them, we reach the former guardhouse. It has been converted into a meeting space and houses a small exhibition about the factory.
Our group of about 15 people consists mostly of UNESCO enthusiasts and architecture fans. However, somewhat disappointingly, our guide focuses less on architectural details and more on the company’s history. He does also tell the human stories behind the factory – about Van Nelle’s workers and their daily routines.
The architectural structure of the Van Nelle Factory
The Van Nelle Factory is divided into two main units. In front of us is a smaller, slightly curved administrative block with offices and laboratories. Behind that, the factory itself, where the processing and packaging took place. A glass corridor connects the two.
Since it is a holiday, the offices are closed. Therefore we spend quite a while outside in the yard admiring the modernist office building and the shiny glass facade. At ground level, three garages remain in the administrative block. That is: three spaces for three cars. The three company directors were the only ones arriving by car back then. They had direct staircases into their offices.
From the offices of the directors there was a gallery that provided views and easy access to the secretary’s pool. Furthermore, the laboratories were housed in this part of the facility.
The second building was originally planned with nine floors. But due to the Great Depression, the architects had to scale back. The final design had three sections of different heights; each tailored to specific processing requirements. There were eight floors for tobacco processing, six for coffee and just three for tea. We are told that the tea arrived in large boxes and only needed re-packaging. Several slanted corridors led over the yard from the processing area down to side buildings with the lorry loading area.
By now, all hoodies are up, and some of our fellow visitors are jumping up and down and clapping their hands from the cold. We walk around some side buildings, have a look into the building’s own power plant (with show windows) and check out the rear façade and a windowless storage building now serving as a car park.
Inside the Van Nelle Factory
But eventually, we do have the chance to step inside the former factory building and see the modernist architectural novelties up close. Walking in a corridor along the glass front, we point the mushroom pillars out to each other. In the 1920s, this was one of the first large buildings that had almost no load-bearing walls. Only the huge ferro-concrete pillars support the structure. A fantastic new technology that was mostly being used in large-scale industry, as we have also realised in the mining town ruins of Japan’s Gunkanjima.
So, thanks to the ferro-concrete, the van Nelle factory could have that famous glass front and light-filled rooms. The old windows are beautiful – but all single-glazed! Still shivering in our winter coats, we wonder about energy standards and conservation issues of listed buildings. But our guide points to the other side of our corridor where a more modern glass wall leads to smaller office spaces. For the refurbishment of the old factory as a modern creative office space, the architcts at Broekbakema have added a second façade with double glazing behind the original windows for better insulation. We find it fascinating to see how this early 20th-century building has been updated for the 21st century. Walking through the light-filled spaces, we imagine (perhaps wrongly) that it must be great to work here!
Pioneering Working Conditions
During our tour, we learn not only about the architecture of the place, but also about the working conditions back then when it was a coffee and tobacco factory. For its era, the Van Nelle Factory was a revelation in industrial working conditions. We are struck by the sheer attention paid to worker welfare. Most memorably, the bathrooms, which remain stylish even by today’s standards. The factory boasted modern sanitary facilities, including fresh towels every morning, grey water handwashing, and – almost unheard of at the time – hot showers that staff were expected to use daily. A true luxury when most Dutch homes lacked running water! But of course, the workers spent their days handling luxury foodstuffs with their bare hands …
Whenever we enter a staircase in the building, our small group gushes forth – some to take photos of the as yet empty staircase. Others to explore different viewpoints, to look up and down, to explore the different sets of stairs. And different they were, even though we can today access all sides. At the time, gender-segregated staircases led up to the upper storeys, entwined but unconnected. Male and female staff worked in different areas and were not supposed to fool around during work. Their separate routes led to separate cloakrooms and bathrooms, ensuring hygiene and privacy for the predominantly female workforce, who handled detailed tasks like sorting and packaging.
At its peak, the factory employed around 2,000 people. The women were working in well-lit, airy spaces designed for comfort and efficiency. The men managed machinery and logistics in separate zones. Beyond hygiene, Van Nelle’s commitment to worker well-being included green spaces, sports fields, a canteen, and even a rooftop tearoom – features that made it one of the most desirable workplaces in the Netherlands.
Our personal highlight
For us, however (and probably everyone in the group holding a camera), the highlight was the blinking Van Nelle neon sign on the factory’s roof in the winter dusk. We walked up to the highest storey of the tobacco building to see the sign sideways from the rooftop.
Should you visit the Van Nelle Factory in Rotterdam?
We like visiting UNESCO sites and have a strong interest in modernist architecture. So, yes, we enjoyed our visit very much. Being surrounded by this wonderful design filled us with joy. However, we would have wished for a guide more knowledgeable (or forthcoming) on the architectural side. And if you have an interest in architecture as well, it might be worth reading up a bit beforehand.
How to get to the Van Nelle Factory in Rotterdam by public transport
We had consulted the “NS” Dutch train app and found a convenient direct bus from the Museumpark area to Roel Langerakweg. From there it wasn’t far to walk. The Van Nelle Factory is a bit outside the city, however, and it helps to plan with sufficient time before the tour.
NB: We had no sponsoring in any way to write this blog post and paid for all our expenses during our trip to Rotterdam.
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A rather interesting factory in its design and working environment for its time but what happened to it during WWll?
Hi Dennis! They didn’t really tell us much about the developments after the first years. But apparently the factory was still used for coffee and tobacco well into the post-war years. At some point it belonged to the Dutch Douwe Egbert coffee brand. We guess the coffee processing only ended when the Netherlands gradually lost their colonies in following decades.
Thanks for responding but you didn’t really answer my query. During the occupation of Holland by the German forces did they do nothing with the factory or just enjoy what was left of the remaining coffee? Presumably it wasn’t destroyed by Allied forces.
During the tour they didn’t tell us about the events at the factory during the occupation. Clearly it was far enough from the city center and not destroyed. Did they use the factory for coffee processing or other foodstuff? Difficult to find out because the Van Nelle brand name has long been belonging to a US company …
Thank you for responding to my query.
The Van Nelle factory in Rotterdam looks like an extraordinary place to visit setting an example of industrial modernism and carrying the honor of UNESCO world heritage site. It was good that you also got a chance to visit the Chabot museum and look at the paintings of the Dutch artist up close. It’s amazing how the 20th century architecture of Van Nelle factory is well preserved evident from its ferro concrete mushroom pillars and the light filled glass facade with buildings connected through glass corridors. Hard to imagine such robust and functional work settings in that period with all the facilities especially for women. I would definitely love to visit the Van Nelle museum.