My sister lived with her boyfriend in Utrecht for many years, and as Utrecht is pretty centrally located in the Netherlands, I often visited them. They live pretty close to the highway's exit, so it was less of a hassle to park the car after a few hours in the car. I probably got the most speeding tickets while driving to Utrecht lol. Luckily, I don't drive that much anymore, so receiving speeding tickets is less risky these days.
Utrecht is a stunning city. If you're planning to visit Utrecht, make sure to visit it, and please go by train. The central station is one of the biggest train stations in the Netherlands. Since I'm not a big fan of crowded places, I usually go walking outside of the city center. This is always nice, and you get to see stuff you usually won't see if you're walking in the city center (no shit, Mr. obvious).
If you've been driving around in Utrecht, there is one specific building that probably has caught everyone's eyes whoever passed by it. It is the Headquarters of Rabobank, one of the biggest central banks in the Netherlands. And the building looks quite... expensive. Just look at all that glass. It looks double-layered. It must have cost millions! I wonder how they got all that money... SIKE. It's us loyal citizens of the traditional finance sector who have been paying for this.
Believe it or not, this building has been built in 1992 and has received an award for its sustainable design (BREEAM EXCELLENT). I bet architect Richard Meier is proud of that. Even though his last name sounds Dutch, he is American(?!). He also made the Den Haag city council's building, which is a huge white and light building (which is his signature style of designing buildings).
For the Dutch, it still looks like a pretty modern building today. It is an iconic building and something that I personally had to see with my own eyes and take photographs of. I was lucky enough to walk around in perfect weather. Sun in the back, clouds in the front.
I wish I could take a photograph of the entire building without a lot of noise around it. In the photograph below I used a black-and-white technique with a silhouette that focuses on the building.
Do you have 'skyscrapers' in your town? Here in the Netherlands, Rotterdam is probably one of the few cities in the Netherlands that has a 'skyline'. But really, I don't think that one of those is actually hugging clouds like the ones in Japan, The USA, or the UAE.
I absolutely love the glass design of this building. What do you think?
Cheers,
Ruben
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