Europe holidays: What it’s like to stay in a cube house in the Netherlands

In Rotterdam, Netherlands, you’ll find kubuswoningen, the city’s strange collection of cube houses. Photo / Julia Hammond

Rotterdam is just 25 minutes by train from Amsterdam and it’s here you’ll find kubuswoningen, the city’s strange collection of cube houses. Now a hostel, budget travellers will find it’s as retro as it is reasonably priced, writes Julia Hammond.

It had been a long day. My rucksack lay carelessly discarded on the floor; the key card I’d dropped had landed on a neatly rolled towel at the foot of the bed. My raincoat hung on the hook – I’m not a complete slob – but the rest of the unpacking would have to wait for a bit as I rested my head on the pillow and took in my surroundings. The sparsely furnished room with its sterile wet room was anything but average. My eyes followed straight lines, but only a few met at 90 degrees. The doors were right, but the windows, walls and ceilings? They were completely off. Instead of falling into a restful slumber my mind tried to dredge up rudimental concepts of geometry as I stared at a pentagon-shaped window.

The sparsely furnished rooms in Cube House are anything but average. Photo / Julia Hammond

Piet Blom was the man responsible for this bizarre but intriguing place. Born in Amsterdam, by the second half of the 20th century he’d become one of the Netherlands’ most influential architects. He was guided by the motto “Living under an urban roof” and believed that by connecting small dwellings with larger communal spaces, he could achieve a greater sense of belonging. In effect he was trying to create a village community at the heart of the city. Principles such as integration, coherence and shared values were at the heart of his designs.

To the delight of Rotterdam’s planners, Blom’s blueprint for an urban forest of treehouses turned out to be as practical as it was striking. When complete, this remarkable string of elevated, tilted cubes formed a bridge over the Blaak, enabling pedestrians to cross the busy road safely when moving between the inner city and Old Harbour. Witty locals dubbed it the Blaak Forest. Florence’s 14th-century Ponte Vecchio was supposed to have inspired Blom’s cube house project, though the way I looked at it, the place couldn’t be more Eighties even if you wrapped massive leg-warmers around its concrete ankles.

The Netherlands' Cube House couldn’t be more Eighties even if you wrapped massive leg-warmers around its concrete ankles. Photo / Julia Hammond

Blom designed the complex to include 38 single-family homes, adding three super-cubes to the development. For a time, the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture occupied two of them, but after a 2009 refit, they became a tourist hostel. Inside, an elevator ran up through a central hexagonal void. Walkways radiated out from this central platform, connecting to 49 individual rooms around the edge of the building. One of them was mine for the night. Unfortunately for me, neither Blom nor the firm of architects that worked on the conversion had factored in the noise an excitable pack of teenagers could generate on a school trip. The screams and laughter that filled their dorms permeated the corridor.

Without earplugs, sleep was going to be elusive. I figured I might as well go for a walk. Outside the hostel, the zinc-roofed yellow cubes seemed to lean inwards, enclosing a first-floor courtyard. Its paving stones had been laid in a floral pattern; a few potted plants had been placed here and there. There wasn’t much going on. In summer, I imagined, it would be a great place to hang out, but it was April, chilly and getting late, so the place was almost deserted.

Kijk-Kubus is a museum in the Netherlands that showcases what it's like to live in a private cube house. Photo / Julia Hammond

The following day, I bought a ticket for Kijk-Kubus. While many of the cubes are still private houses, you can nose around one that has been converted into a museum. It spanned three small floors linked by steep staircases. Custom furniture and funky decor pieces couldn’t detract from the fact that this would be a challenging space in which to live. The bespoke galley kitchen, though stylish, was a tight squeeze and in the living room and bedroom, sloping walls and oddly-shaped windows would make pulling curtains tricky – if there had been any. The whole thing felt awkward and a little uncomfortable. Nevertheless, a cube house would certainly be a talking point for invited guests.

While many of the cubes are still private houses, one has been converted into a museum. Photo / Julia Hammond

Actually, the Rotterdam development wasn’t Blom’s first dalliance with kubuswoningen (cube houses). In the 1970s, he created an experimental cluster in Helmond, an industrial city close to Eindhoven in the south of the Netherlands. There, the wood-clad cubes stand on chunky plinths like angular mushrooms. But save for the bold green paint on their window frames these groundbreaking predecessors lack the punchy injection of colour that’s in part responsible for shining such a bright spotlight on their big city cousins.

The popularity of Rotterdam’s cube houses also has a lot to do with their surroundings. This port city was flattened during World War II. Afterward, planners were encouraged to come up with bold, innovative designs to fill the blank canvas. As a consequence, Rotterdam quickly gained an eye-catching miscellany of avant-garde architecture. The waterfront Shipping and Transport College looks like a chunky periscope and the vast canopy of the Rotterdam Centraal railway station resembles a fallen arrowhead. With a little imagination, you might interpret the futuristic Pauluskerk as a copper-clad, rough-cut diamond.

In this kind of city, a jumbled collection of elevated yellow cubes feels right at home. If you can train yourself to think like a Rotterdammer, so will you.

Quirky windows in Rotterdam's cube houses. Photo / Julia Hammond

Do it yourself

There are more flights to Amsterdam than Rotterdam. A direct train from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport to Rotterdam Centraal takes 25 minutes and costs around 15 euros.

I booked a comfort room at Rotterdam’s Stayokay Hostel, within the Cube Houses complex. Private rooms sleeping two start at 95 euros (NZ$170); dorm beds cost from 38 euros per person. A basic breakfast is included.

A ticket for the Kijk-Kubus (Show Cube) costs 3 euros. The nearest metro station is Rotterdam Blaak.

For more to see and do in Rotterdam, visit netherlands-tourism.com