Nestle Building - Piekstraat - 1
I discovered this site on 14 November 1998. It is a beautiful empty building opposite the Hunter-Douglas factory in Rotterdam Zuid. (Hunter-Douglas sounds very high-tech, but they make aluinium curtains - Venetian blinds).

If you want to read about more of my deserted buildings then look here:

The Piekstraat is a very adventurous place. There are many holes in the floors, and sometimes whole floors and wall-segments have been broken away. You have to watch your step continuously.

See more of this place on the following pages:

  1. The TV-recording + falling on my butt + rappel
  2. The winter climb + more inside pictures
The stairs are accessible from the first floor. You can go all the way to the roof. From here you can see the Feyenoord-stadium, the Brienenoord bridge and the old water tower on the opposite side of the river.

Below is the view from the stairs:

Several doors lead to nowhere. If you open them you drop two floors down. The concrete ring on the quay probably supported a harbour crane. In the background you see modern social housing projects. They are neat and nice but the inhabitants have to look at this deserted building continuously.

The whole building is full of holes. In the roof, and in the floor. You have to watch your step all the time. But it has a beautiful colour that always reminds me of Italy:

Stairs without handholds, broken windows, peeling paint, puddles of rain water on the floors and heaps of pigeon shit.

For two years this place remained undisturbed. Interesting weeds were growing in the courtyard.

Long passages stretching the whole length of the building. The tiles along the walls create a laboratory atmosphere. According to Walter they made instant-coffee and chocolate in this place. It's going to be renovated in August 1999.