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Climate-saving wonder – or €240m vanity bauble that ages like milk? The rocks set to hit Rotterdam docks
Climate & EnergyThe Guardian25 Aug, 08:15 pmAtlasHour
Climate & Energy

Climate-saving wonder – or €240m vanity bauble that ages like milk? The rocks set to hit Rotterdam docks

MVRDV – the firm behind Marble Arch Mound – says Rotterdam ROCKS! will inspire visitors to live sustainably. But in an era when the greenest building is the one that already exists, this tottering cairn looks set to misfire ‘It looks like something Shrek would throw up,” sniffed one online commentator, unflatteringly comparing Rotterdam ROCKS!, the recently unveiled proposal for a waterfront site in Europe’s largest port, with the vomitings of a cartoon ogre. Designed by Dutch architectural firm MVRDV, which gave London the supremely underwhelming Marble Arch Mound in 2021, Rotterdam ROCKS! (the use of EMPHATIC CAPITALS connoting an in-your-face energy) is the winner of a major architectural competition intended to create “a new world wonder”. But instead of a modern Hanging Gardens of Babylon or contemporary Colossus of Rhodes, MVRDV’s super slick renderings depict a pile of artificial “rocks” (or ROCKS!) stacked together in a humongously scaled tottering cairn, wreathed in suspiciously luxuriant foliage and sluiced by a preposterous waterfall...

By AtlasHour DeskPublished 25 Aug, 08:15 pm1 min read
Source-linkedAtlasHour DeskThe Guardian25 Aug, 08:15 pm

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MVRDV – the firm behind Marble Arch Mound – says Rotterdam ROCKS!

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