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Van Nellefabriek

Van Nellefabriek was designed and built in the 1920s on the banks of a canal in the Spaanse Polder industrial zone north-west of Rotterdam. The site is one of the icons of 20th-century industrial architecture, comprising a complex of factories, with façades consisting essentially of steel and glass, making large-scale use of the curtain wall principle. It was conceived as an ‘ideal factory’, open to the outside world, whose interior working spaces evolved according to need, and in which daylight was used to provide pleasant working conditions. It embodies the new kind of factory that became a symbol of the modernist and functionalist culture of the inter-war period and bears witness to the long commercial and industrial history of the Netherlands in the field of importation and processing of food products from tropical countries, and their industrial processing for marketing in Europe.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1441

The Van Nellefabriek is an industrial complex that has become an icon of Modernism and symbolizes the commercial history of the international trade port of Rotterdam. Designed in the late 1920s as an 'Ideal Factory', its main components are steel and glass to create an environment of light, air and space.

The complex lies on the banks of a canal. The former factory was used for the processing, packaging and dispatching of transported goods coming from all over the world. There are three main building at the sites: the tobacco factory, tea factory and coffee factory, plus a series of smaller functional buildings.

The buildings were designed by architect Leendert van der Vlugt from the Brinkman & Van der Vlugt office in cooperation with civil engineer J.G. Wiebenga, at that time a specialist for constructions in reinforced concrete, and built between 1925 and 1931. It is an example of Nieuwe Bouwen, modern architecture in the Netherlands. It was commissioned by the co-owner of the Van Nelle company, Kees van der Leeuw, on behalf of the owners. 

http://www.worldheritagesite.org/sites/vannellefabriek.html