Rotterdam is adding a new vertical landmark behind one of its rare prewar survivors, the former Central Post Office. Designed by ODA, the 155-meter POST tower sits over the Postkantoor’s open courtyard, with a pale grid of arches that reads against the older building’s masonry and vaulted geometry.
The original post office was designed by Gustav Cornelis Bremer and built between 1916 and 1923. It remained standing after the 1940 Rotterdam Blitz, giving the site added historic weight in a city known for rebuilding through bold new architecture. The POST development, led by Omnam Group, brings a mixed-use program while the old postal building moves into a broader restoration and conversion effort led by ODA.
Rather than filling in the courtyard, the tower spans it on a vaulted plinth that keeps the ground plane open. Visitors entering the courtyard pass beneath a contemporary arch system, with the Great Hall’s historic vaults nearby, putting two architectural eras in the same frame.
ODA also carried forward the Postkantoor’s five-meter facade rhythm into the high-rise through a regular, stone-colored grid. The tower nods to the Gothic verticality of the Great Hall and the neighboring City Hall, translating pointed arches and deep reveals into a pared-back facade that stands out in Rotterdam’s glass-heavy skyline.
On the exterior, custom glass fiber-reinforced concrete panels create staggered arches and vertical columns around a unitized aluminum curtain wall. The prefabricated, three-dimensional panels are shaped to give the depth and texture of limestone while meeting the technical demands of a 155-meter tower. Brick is also used alongside the concrete grid to extend the material character of the historic building into the new construction. ODA describes building at this scale next to a protected national monument as an engineering exercise, with each panel aligning to a tight structural order while varied depths add shadow and definition up close.
Next, attention turns to restoration of the 22.5-meter-high Great Hall and a new opening through the Rodezand facade, aiming to create a public passage across the block with activity gathered under the hall’s vaulted ceiling.
Read the full, original article from Designboom here.