Jessica Hemmings

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Fenix Museum, Rotterdam

  • Open access publication

    Rotterdam’s new Fenix Museum is part a historical record of the emigration and immigration the city has lived, part contemporary art complex, and part – as the name suggests – a proverbial phoenix rising from its own ashes. Housed in a renovated warehouse originally designed by the architect Cornelis van Goor (1861–1945) and built for the Holland-America Line (HAL) in 1923, the museum opened its doors to the public in May 2025. The San Francisco Warehouse, as it was originally known, made up part of the largest warehouse in the world for cargo transfer when it first opened. Contents ranged from coffee beans, cocoa and wheat to iron, essential for the production of the steel that was crucial to the construction of post-World War I Europe.

    Renovation of the site, which was partially destroyed by German troops at the end of World War II and later further damaged by fire in 1948, was undertaken by Ma Yansong, the founder and a principle partner of MAD Architects. Now puncturing the centre of the Fenix is the Tornado, a dramatic addition of reflective double staircases that lead to a viewing platform with encompassing views over the city’s Port district, Katendrecht, and its busy river artery. Otherwise, the restoration has returned the building, which had experienced not only damage but also previous renovations in the past century, to its original clean lines and interior rhythm punctuated by concrete columns.

    Today, the Fenix takes as its raison d'être the topic of migration. As a theme it is far from new, but Rotterdam’s latest cultural landmark departs from a number of curatorial conventions...

    Third Text online

  • Image credit

    Photographer Mounir Raji. Image courtesy of the Fenix Museum.