What is FENIX?
What is FENIX?
FENIX will open in 2025. Is it a museum? Yes, and much more than that. FENIX is a cultural location in Rotterdam, the Netherlands inspired by migration stories from around the world. About love and goodbyes, coming home and feeling at home, navigating identity or seeking happiness. At the quintessential location of departure and arrival.
Through art, culture and flavours, FENIX stimulates your curiosity about the world we live in and how it has been shaped by migration. FENIX’s story is Rotterdam’s story. And its story is the worlds. Because migration affects us, even when we stay where we are.
Explore the theme through the eyes of international artists such as Do Ho Su, Shilpa Gupta, Bill Viola, Rineke Dijkstra and Omar Victor Diop. In a monumental maze of suitcases, you meander past personal stories, and the Family of Migrants exhibition takes you on a journey past hundreds of iconic documentary photographs. Plein is a 2,000 m2 city square inside FENIX. It is a vibrant place that follows the rhythm of the city.
FENIX is housed in a historic harbour warehouse dating from 1923, at 16,000 m2 once the largest storage and transshipment warehouse in the world. The Chinese firm MAD Architects is breathing new life into the carefully restored heritage with a modern addition. The Tornado is staircase, artwork and experience in one. From the ground floor of the warehouse, stairs spiral up to a spectacular viewing platform high above the roof.
Directly on the River Maas, FENIX overlooks the quays from where millions of people left by ship for destinations in the United States and Canada, including Albert Einstein and Willem de Kooning. Just as many new Rotterdammers arrived here. Europe’s first Chinatown developed on Katendrecht and Cape Verdean sailors and Surinamese jazz musicians, among others, found their home there. People climbing the Tornado will be treated to a new view over Rotterdam: the ultra-diverse city shaped by more than 170 nationalities.
Droom en Daad
FENIX is an initiative by Droom en Daad. Droom en Daad was established in 2016 to make the city of Rotterdam even more beautiful by investing in art and culture. FENIX is one of the foundation’s first initiatives.