At the mouth of the port of Rotterdam, two 210-metre steel arms wait for the storm in their docks on the Nieuwe Waterweg. When the water threatens to reach three metres in Rotterdam, a computer decides on its own to swing them shut across the river. The Keringhuis, at the foot of the barrier, takes groups there.
“
In the mid-1980s, new sea-level forecasts showed that the dikes along the Nieuwe Waterweg would be too low. Raising them would have meant thirty years of expropriations in town, so the country chose a movable gate, built from 1991 to 1997 for about €450 million. Its ball joints, 10-metre spheres cast by Škoda in Pilsen, are the largest in the world. It has closed against a real storm in November 2007 and December 2023; every September a test closure shuts it again.
The group tour lasts 90 minutes: a film about the construction, the exhibition, then the barrier grounds, open only with a guide. It costs €140 for up to 30 people per guide, in English, French or German; meeting rooms seat 18 to 100, and lunch can be booked all year. Metro line B from Rotterdam to Hoek van Holland Haven takes half an hour, then 4 km on foot or by bike along the water. A team sees how a vital decision is handed to rules written in advance, and why a crew stays on watch, ready to take over by hand.
Photo credits : Joop van Houdt (Rijkswaterstaat) (Wikimedia Commons, Attribution) ; kees torn (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0) ; Mark Voorendt (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) ; Adriaan van Oost (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0)
We design and lead a learning expedition that goes through this place. You can also design it yourself with Agent A\lex.
Agent A\lex
