The Lee Towers, biggest transformation in the Netherlands

Rotterdam's Europoint buildings on Marconiplein, formerly known as Marconitorens, are a household name in the city. From 1975 to 2015, two of the three gray and black checkered office towers were the home of Rotterdam City Council. After the officials moved to De Rotterdam, Europoint Towers II and III came into the hands of project developers. They transformed the icons into 840 rental apartments and gave them an illustrious name: The Lee Towers.

Apartments range from studios of 40 m² to two-room apartments of 70 m². They are fully furnished with white and brown goods. "They are like hotel rooms, you can move right in with your rolling suitcase," Bram van Ekeren of diederendirrix architecture & urbanism explains the concept. "The clients focused on graduating starters and expats who are new to the city and need a place to stay." The transformed towers offer optimal living comfort with the service of a hotel. In the plinth of the buildings are restaurants, workplaces, gyms with sauna and laundrettes. A concierge is available 24 hours a day in the lobby for convenience services. He or she is the point of contact for tenant questions or requests. On the top two floors are two rooftop restaurants and mezzanine apartments.

Atmospheric outdoor space

The apartments have generous Methermo®XL vertical sliding windows from Metaglas, which can be used to transform the living rooms into an attractive outdoor space. These slim profiled windows replaced the old fixed windows, without affecting the image-defining character of the facade. Van Ekeren: "As in the old situation, the building is mechanically ventilated, but residents now have the option of opening a window." Most of the floors have windows 2.80 m wide by 2.80 m high. In the plinth and on the 22nd and 23rd floors, the windows are twice as high. Half of each window area is sliding using electric controls. All windows, except the plinth, have bronze-colored glass 2 x 8 mm thick. "This is the same color as the original glass. As a result, the new facade closely matches the old, and that was an important requirement of the building aesthetics committee."

Custom windows

The Methermo®XL sliding windows were custom-made. "It was quite a challenge to create a window with flat detailing in the existing facade," Van Ekeren explains. "This is because the existing set frames are behind the natural stone cladding and we couldn't reach them. Therefore, we left the existing frame as a set frame and Metaglas adapted its profiles accordingly." Metaglas had to make quite a plan of action for this, Van Ekeren knows. "The old window was taken out, if necessary damaged frames were repaired and the waterproofing repaired, and then aluminum strips went over the existing frames.  

Once this was done, the new window could be put in." Assembly was no easy task. "The waterproofing listens very closely at such a height, with a great wind pressure," he said.

2000 windows

The transformation is the largest transformation project in the Netherlands, also for Metaglas, which assembles some 2,000 windows. "From a distance you can hardly see the new profiling and that, as crazy as it sounds, is a compliment to Metaglas," van Ekeren said. The apartment buildings opened in late 2019 and have continued under the name The Lee Towers, a reference to the Rotterdam singer as well as to one of the developers: Lee Foolen. The idea for this arose in response to a clip by Arjen Lubach on the satirical VPRO program Zondag met Lubach about America First, Netherlands Second. It showed that America has Trump Towers, but the Netherlands has Lee Towers. "Because my own name is Lee, the joke was already made to call it the Lee Towers," Foolen told daily Metro. According to the Telegraaf, Rotterdam singer Lee Towers was only too happy to link his name to the towers. "That just makes you a little quiet. In my life I have had all the awards you can get, but this is the icing on the cake," he said at the presentation.