Rotterdam in 3D

Being of Dutch decent, I’m particularly excited to announce the introduction of Rotterdam, Netherlands as the latest 3D city to be in Google Earth!

While there’s plenty to see when visiting this southern city of 600,000 residents, if you’re a fan of architecture then you’ll want to fly directly to the Kubuswoningen (cube houses).



The Kubuswonigen is a set of innovative houses designed by architect Piet Blom in 1984. The houses are tilted at 45 degrees, and sit on hexagon-shaped pylons. There are 38 small cubes and two so called 'super-cubes', all attached to each other.


The cube houses are quite an attraction and visitors are said to frequently disturb the local so often that one owner reportedly decided to open a "show cube", which is furnished as a normal house, and is making a living out of offering tours to visitors. Brilliant!

The geo-modeling community is very active in Rotterdam. Over 100 user-created buildings (created with Google SketchUp and Google Building Maker) are in the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth - including the cube houses, the Erasmus bridge (“De Zwaan”), and the Feijenoord Stadion, among others.

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager