Rotterdam Erasmus Bridge ( painting) by Bert Hooijer

About "Rotterdam Erasmus Bridge ( painting)"

by Bert Hooijer

About the artwork

Rotterdam is a port city in the west of the Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. With 588,490 inhabitants (1 January 2021), it is the second largest city in the Netherlands by population, after Amsterdam. The entire municipality of Rotterdam has 656,050 inhabitants and the even larger Rotterdam Den Haag metropolitan region has more than 2.4 million inhabitants. Rotterdam gets its name from a dam in the river Rotte. The city lies on the Nieuwe Maas river, which is fed by water from the Rhine. The port of Rotterdam was for a long time the largest in the world and is still the largest and most important in Europe. The port area stretches for 40 kilometres and is an important logistics and economic centre. Partly because of its port industry, Rotterdam has the image of a working-class city and has a very diverse population. After the historic city centre was largely destroyed by a German war bombardment in 1940, Rotterdam has become a cradle for innovative architecture, including the Erasmus Bridge, the Cube Houses and a large number of skyscrapers. The city is also known for Erasmus University, the art collections of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and the Kunsthal and football clubs Sparta, Excelsior and Feijenoord. In January 1948, Queen Wilhelmina granted Rotterdam permission to use the motto Sterker door strijd (Stronger through struggle) under the city's coat of arms.