The proposal fits into an ambitious development plan for the city center, presented last week by the authorities of Rotterdam. According to this program, new residential buildings (5,000 apartments) and offices (800,000 sq. M), as well as large cultural and leisure establishments, should appear in the historical "core" of the city by 2020. The latter includes the renovated post office on Kolsingel Street, which should accommodate a shopping center and a 70-meter-high hotel tower by 2010. This choice of functions should ensure that people are present in and around the complex in the evenings and on weekends to avoid the typical business districts 'extinction' outside office hours.
The post office will continue to carry out its direct functions after reconstruction, and the structure of its historic building will be preserved. But two of its main halls will be "redesigned", and the new tower-hotel will occupy the space of the courtyard.
The hall overlooking the lively Kolsingel will be transformed into a shopping center with a glass-roofed atrium. Ben van Berkel plans to preserve most of the original architectural details there, so new floors will grow from the cassette base of the old vault.
The part of the post office building facing Rodesand Street will be more clearly changed: in the center of the facade there will be a transparent extension - a "vertical foyer", which will serve the post office itself, a shopping center and a hotel.
