The Witte Huis () or White House is a

building A building or edifice is an enclosed Structure#Load-bearing, structure with a roof, walls and window, windows, usually standing permanently in one place, such as a house or factory. Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and functions, a ...

and National Heritage Site in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

, Netherlands, built in 1898 in the

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

style.Rijksmonument report The building is tall, with 10 floors. It was the first ''hoogbouw'' (literally: high-rise building) in Europe. The building is listed as a Rijksmonument.

Construction

The architect Willem Molenbroek designed the 10-storey building, at the time an unprecedented height in Europe. The site at Wijnhaven 3 is just 1 m above sea-level and skeptics claimed that the soft soil of Rotterdam would be unable to adequately support the building, so before construction could properly begin, 1000 piles were driven into the ground to support the building's weight. The building is constructed from iron, steel and concrete, and includes two thick interior walls which increase the building's strength. Unlike many other contemporary buildings of the time, wood was not a significant construction material due to the fear of fire. The building cost 127,900 Dutch guilders. It was one of the few buildings in central Rotterdam to survive the German bombing campaigns of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

In popular culture

The White House is featured in the game '' Battlefield V''. It takes place during the Battle of Rotterdam, which itself is part of the Battle of the Netherlands in May 1940. The White House is only featured in one of the two maps called "Rotterdam", which is the one before the Rotterdam Blitz happened.

References

External links

De bouw van het Witte Huis in 1897
''The construction of the White House in 1897'' {{Coord, 51, 55, 07.8, N, 04, 29, 30.3, E, display=title Rijksmonuments in Rotterdam Art Nouveau architecture in the Netherlands Art Nouveau commercial buildings Commercial buildings completed in 1898 Buildings and structures in Rotterdam 1898 establishments in the Netherlands 19th-century architecture in the Netherlands