2023 Urban Espresso Bar / UEB – Rotterdam

OUTSIDE

A bouquet of flowers in a narrow glass space – a window-box jutting slightly towards me, out into the space of the street – hovering over the pavement and kept well free from first-floor level
A huge windowpane – equally sticking out from the building’s solid, load-bearing structure of white-washed concrete by a gentle ten centimetres – sitting on a terrazzo plinth of elevated pavement but, although rising higher than the box, like it detached from the architectural ceiling
And in between: a shallow entrance-space, protruding into the inside as much as the window-box sticks out of it – they are complementary twins, covered by a shared ceiling – having sides of glass
here, there’s no ‘façade’ – even before actually entering inside UEB, I’m ‘into’ it

INSIDE

The interior a whitewashed rectangular volume, into which a slice has been carved out, containing slanting spaces: one is the stairs into UEB’s cellar, the other one the echo of the entrance into an untouchable world over my head
Thus, the rectangular architectural space – is it higher than wide? – has its extremities articulated into a narrow one, facing Botersloot, and a wide one, facing the inner plaza
These boundaries are no straight-cut edges; each of them is an intricate play of interwoven volumes of space, a three-dimensional jig-saw of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’
Here, there’s no ‘façade’ either – even while sitting in UEB, I am out in public space

WINDOW-BOX

One side telescoping out by discrete three-centimetre tapers, graphically delineated in concrete
The other side an immaterial edge of two panes of glass, cutting into the street
Physically open to where I sit – next to it, I could stick my hand into it to touch the flowers – this box-space is an ‘apart’, a silent-almost-sacred ‘go between’, a sphere of pure-ness, of quality, of well-come…
It’s an ‘étalage’ of what’s happening here, an edge of the ‘inside’ as a beacon to the ‘outside’

BAKKER

This is Architecture – not as a display of matter, of boundary, of limitation – but as a careful kneading of space, of ‘emptiness’, of generosity
A small-scale masterpiece of almost-forgotten Herman D. Bakker – architect of Rotterdam

UEB

This is UEB – no fuzz, no much-ado-about-nothing – but a love-full artistry of tastes, a spot of ‘gentle-ness’, of chatter and contacts
huge accomplishment of Jo and her staff, widely acclaimed – an asset to Rotterdam

UEB, 20030216; © Guus Vreeburg / Het OOG, Rotterdam