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Forbes
5 days ago
- Forbes
San Pedro Creek Culture Park: San Antonio's Other River Walk
The "Restoration" section of Kathy and Lionel Sosa's 'La Gloriosa Historia de San Pedro Creek On My Mind' ceramic tile mural. Chadd Scott The San Antonio River Walk has been drawing tourists since the 1940s. They have come by the tens of millions through the years, strolling after visits to the Alamo a block away. Visitors enjoy the shops and restaurants and hotels lining the banks of the river's downtown loop. It's concrete banks. The San Antonio River through San Antonio is river in name only. Man-made efforts to control the flow of water dating back over 100 years have converted the river into what would more accurately be described as a flood control ditch. An engineering project. No more natural than the canals of Venice. Like all rivers, the San Antonio River periodically floods. At least it used to. Dams, straightening, dredging, channelizing, and an unseen network of pipes and drains and overflow tunnels have nearly eliminated the river's likelihood of overflowing its banks and destroying businesses downtown. That's good. The cost, however, was the river. That's bad. The San Antonio River through downtown exemplifies mid-20th century thinking about urban river flood control. Then, the goal was moving water away from populated areas as fast as possible by deepening, straightening, and lining with concrete river banks and bottom. Nature and aesthetics be dammed. Like the Los Angeles River, another river in name only. Twenty-first century thinking about flood control on urban rivers flows 180-degrees in the opposite direction. Today's best practices encourage moving flood water as slowly as possible by returning bends and curves to urban rivers. Adding native plants and trees along the banks to soak up and slow down water. River rocks and aquatic plants in the channel to slow down water. Less concrete. Attempting to mimic nature, not control it. Efforts at controlling nature rarely work long term. This 21st century thinking can be seen in San Antonio along the San Pedro Creek Culture Park, a 2.2-mile river walk flowing through the city a few blocks west from its more famous predecessor. The Locals River Walk A "before" picture of what would become the San Pedro Creek Culture Park. San Antonio River Authority Groundbreaking on the San Pedro Creek Culture Park began in 2016. The $300 million dollar project completed its final section in May of this year. The Creek has been rebuilt, not restored. There was nothing left to restore. When work began, parts of the Creek had been fully channelized, other portions covered by development, others existing as nothing more than trash and weed choked trickles. San Pedro Creek Culture Park, like the San Antonio River Walk, is an engineering project. Unnatural. The great difference, however, is the Culture Park having been rebuilt in a naturalistic way. The Creek was widened to slow the flow of water. Curves were built into its banks and those banks planted with native plants and trees returning some small portion of the biodiversity the Creek once featured. Visitors to San Antonio staying at the Element San Antonio Riverwalk hotel downtown are on the doorstep of the River Walk and two blocks from San Pedro Creek for easy comparison and contrast. An "after" picture along the northern section of the San Pedro Creek Culture Park from the same viewpoint as the above "before" picture. San Antonio River Authority From time immemorial, indigenous people occupied areas around San Pedro Creek taking advantage of its incredible natural abundance. Then the settler colonials came, first with their missions and towns, then their industry. The Creek–and San Antonio River and nearly every other river in America–became a 'working' river in the 19th and 20th centuries, used for turning water wheels, for power, for tanning and textiles and milling and soap making in the case of San Pedro Creek. The industrial waste, and then their city's human waste, was sent into the river. The rivers died. The fish died. Giant freshwater river shrimp from San Pedro Creek as long as a man's forearm used to feed local people. The species is now locally extinct. A reminder can be found in Camaron Street paralleling the northern section of the Culture Park. 'Camarón' translates to 'shrimp' in Spanish. America's rivers were turned into lifeless toxic waste dumps and open sewers. San Pedro Creek could never have been returned to what it was in 1750, but it's a hell of a lot better now than it was in 1950, or 2015. Now, San Pedro Creek casually makes its way through San Antonio past park spaces, green spaces, and art installations created as part of the project, past the University of Texas San Antonio's Institute for Cyber Security and a new federal courthouse. In summertime, the Park's length features a riot of blooming wildflowers attracting clouds of butterflies–queen, Phaon crescent, gulf fritillary, monarch. Herons and egrets have returned to the channel. Turtles–big ones–occupy a pool beside the massive flood control tunnel outlet on the southern end. In 1991, a tunnel 24-feet in diameter was constructed at a depth of 140-feet below the Creek's surface running a length of 1.1 miles to both divert flood water out of the creek bed downtown and supply water to the creek bed in times of drought. An even larger stormwater tunnel was constructed in the mid-90s under the San Antonio River through downtown. Interstates 10 and 35 bracket the Park on either end, eight lanes of traffic, an additional reminder that the Creek is now an urban science project. To wit, it flows with treated wastewater. It's perfectly safe and has no smell, although you wouldn't want to drink it. The natural springs and aquifer once feeding the Creek no longer supply enough water–too much is taken by thirsty San Antonians and their homes and businesses and agriculture and golf courses. Unlike the touristy downtown River Walk, the San Pedro Creek Culture Park was designed and built for locals. A community amenity. As it always has, San Pedro Creek continues giving more than it takes. Its gifts today are beautification, recreation, shade, cleaner air and water, walking and biking paths, dabs of nature in the city, the enchanting sound of falling water, programs and events, and art. San Antonio's History In Art A portion of Adrian M. Garcia's ceramic tile mural 'De Todos Caminos Somos Todos Uno (From All Roads, We Are All One).' Chadd Scott A perforated stainless steel wall screening mechanical operations from visitors sets the Culture Park's northern limit. Among those operations, a seine removing trash from the water flowing here out of San Pedro Springs Park 1.5 miles north, the original spring site feeding the Creek. Fun fact: San Pedro Springs Park is America's second oldest city park behind only Boston Common. At night, the wall's perforations are backlit to reveal what the stars looked like on May 5, 1718, the day San Antonio was founded by Spanish colonizers. A large pool fed by falling water from behind the steel wall begins the Creek's new journey. This is Plaza de Fundación. Visitors can walk over a metal grate and look down at the flood control tunnel beneath, or wade in calmer waters below. Here, elevated on one side of the bank, Creek Lines mirrors the historic flow of San Pedro Creek to its confluence with the San Antonio River via a canopy cutout. Thirty curved poles more than 10 feet tall, each with a plaque detailing a singular event from the city's history, support the structure. Two blocks south of Plaza de Fundación, Adrian M. Garcia's ceramic tile mural De Todos Caminos Somos Todos Uno (From All Roads, We Are All One) stretches 117-feet along the creek channel. The artwork shares snippets of San Antonio history from indigenous habitation on either end, working toward present day in the middle. Like almost all the Culture Park's commissioned artists, Garcia is local. She was born and raised on the West side, San Antonio's historic Mexican district. San Antonio was segregated and the Creek acted as dividing line between the West side and the Anglo part of town, the downtown with banks and tourist attractions and government buildings. Joe Lopez' Bellos Recuerdos del Teatro Alameda y Tiempos Pasados recalls this segregated mid-20th century period in the city's history with another tile mural along the creek bed. Murals and tile work across San Antonio recall Mexico's wonderful mural and tile traditions. Lopez' artwork depicts the Alameda Theater, a cultural hub for the city's Spanish speaking community throughout the 1900s. The title translates to 'beautiful memories of Alameda Theater from times past.' The historic theater visible from San Pedro Creek in front of the mural, and the first in San Antonio to integrate, has been vacant for decades. Continuing south and occupying the most developed portion of the Creek, Kathy and Lionel Sosa's La Gloriosa Historia de San Pedro Creek On My Mind –another spectacular tile mural–shares five eras of San Antonio history across five separate murals: Foundation, Confrontation, Separation, Inundation, Restoration. The colorful images are a mashup of people, places, animals, events, and symbols each deeply meaningful to city residents and the visitor experience today. It's one of the finest public art projects in America. A previously straightened and channelized portion of the San Pedro Creek through downtown San Antonio. This picture is taken from the same vantage point in the opposite direction as the below "after" picture. Chadd Scott An "after" picture of the San Pedro Creek Culture Park project through downtown San Antonio looking north with the creek bed widened, curved, and the banks filled with native plants and trees. Chadd Scott San Pedro Creek Culture Park's linear continuity is only broken in one place, for a block, just south of the stretch through the heart of downtown. City sidewalks easily span the gap. The southernmost portion, the last to be completed, traverses more industrial sections of the city before opening up to feature the Park's greatest stretch of nature. Steep, wide banks, not yet filled out by native plants and wildflowers, already greet passersby with a melody of birdsong. For lovers of native plants and trees and butterflies and birds and nature in urban settings along rivers like this, the San Antonio River Walk's southern section, the Mission Reach, has been built with this in mind, not commerce. After exploring San Pedro Creek Culture Park, go straight to Confluence Park, a national model for restoring urban waterways, sustainable urban parks, and environmental consciousness in big cities. A worthwhile break on the southern end of the Culture Park comes by way of Piedras Pegras de Noche, a local Mexican restaurant far off the tourist path where two large breakfast tacos and a pecan pancake costs less than $10. Total. The walkway goes right past the eatery's parking lot. At the Culture Park's southern end, one last art installation deserves attention. Mark Reigelman's giant, Corten steel, cupped hand, Falling Water captures stormwater runoff from the interstate above, filtering out trash and sending the cascading water into a natural area for filtration and dispersement before joining San Pedro Creek. More From Forbes Forbes Strolling Through Culture And Cuisine: One Perfect Day In San Antonio By Chadd Scott Forbes Rediscovering Michael Tracy At The McNay Art Museum In San Antonio By Chadd Scott Forbes Mississippi River Centers Inaugural Wakpa Triennial Art Festival In Minnesota's Twin Cities By Chadd Scott
Forbes
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Fenix International Art Museum Of Migration Opens In Rotterdam
Photographs on view as part of "Family of Migrants" exhibition at Fenix art museum in Rotterdam. Chadd Scott Migration is a person. Immigration. Emigration. People. A mother. A child. A family. Politicians want us to forget this, focusing contemporary conversations about migration on borders and paperwork and permission and statistics. Migration as a problem, not a person. The trick is working. Voters from the United States to the Netherlands have installed far right-wing, anti-immigration, anti-people governments hell bent on punishing migration via the most inhumane measures imaginable. Americans are quick to ignore that every single non-Indigenous one of them descends from a migrant. The Dutch were made migrants 85 years ago when Hitler invaded. When thinking about migration is separated from thinking about people–and our histories–as these villains so cleverly achieve, the challenge of migration can be given over to cruelty. It's time for the artists to remind us that migration is a person. That's exactly what they do to stirring effect at Fenix, the new international art museum devoted to migration in Rotterdam, Netherlands, opened May 16, 2025. The single-issue museum located in a former Holland America Line shipping and storage warehouse on the docks from which millions of Europeans left for new lives overseas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries–migrants–makes clear that now, as then, migrants are people–just like you. Detail of Daria Khozhai's 'Pravda - 'Truth,'' 2024-2025, installed at Fenix art museum Rotterdam. Chadd Scott Not all the art inside Fenix was produced by migrants, but much of it was. That includes Willem de Kooning's (1907–1997) Man in Waistcoat (1969). De Kooning migrated to America from these very docks in 1926. He was a stowaway. A charming term from a bygone era. Today he'd be called illegal. Chased by ICE. Thrown to the ground. Hands zip-tied. Perhaps sent to prison. One of the greatest artists of the 20th century. A person. A migrant. Just like Albert Einstein. He migrated to America from the Rotterdam docks as well. Intellectual. Pacifist. Jewish. The Nazis didn't want the world thinking of him as a person either. Not a real person. Not an equal person. Something less. Trash. The way 2025's Nazi-descended politicians on both sides of the Atlantic want us thinking about migrants. Maria Kulikovska (b. 1988) is a migrant. She fled Crimea in her native Ukraine when Russia annexed it in 2014. Since then, she's filled out hundreds of visa and residence applications seeking shelter, safety–acceptance–in countries across Europe. A person. Her tormented paintings on these forms are particularly powerful. As is fellow Ukrainian, fellow migrant, Daria Khozhai's (b. 1991) recreation of her childhood bedroom in Kyiv. The old Soviet Union threw up tens of thousands of cheap, cold, concrete apartments across the city from the 60s through the 90s. Residents insulated the walls with copies of 'Pravda' ('Truth') newspapers–sometimes nearly a foot thick–covering them with wallpaper. When Russia began bombing Kyiv in 2022, the walls were blown away, exposing the old newspapers. Inside the small bedroom, roughly 6-by-8 feet, Khozhai has covered the walls with contemporary newspaper front pages related to Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. On these papers, Vladimir Putin is called every terrible name in the book, Europe's indignation at full throat. That indignation, those headlines, the praise for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's bravery and leadership cooling dramatically since those early days–in Europe and America. Fenix' art collection began from scratch five years ago. It currently numbers about 400 pieces with new acquisitions continually being made. This is the work of Wim Pijbes, former director of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and current director of Droom en Daad Foundation, the funding source behind Fenix. It is not a national museum. No representative from the Dutch government was on hand when the building was introduced to assembled members of the media from around the world despite its historic newsworthiness. A government presence at such events is commonplace. The absence was conspicuous. 'Starting this collection, I came across many images, and as an art historian, I immediately thought, this is all the same–Jesus, Mary and Joseph on that flight to Egypt,' Pijbes told 'It's the same image as people at the border of Syria, having everything they have in their hands. (Migration is) nothing new. It's all over the world. It's universal, timeless.' In addition to the artworks–most created by international emerging artists–Fenix displays important historical artifacts related to migration such as a section of the Berlin Wall, a migrant boat from Lampedusa in the Mediterranean Sea, and a 1923 Nansen passport. This was an internationally recognized travel document issued to stateless refugees after World War I. A 'Suitcase Labyrinth' composed of 2,000 donated suitcases brings to life a collection of personal histories from countries, cultures, and communities around the world. Each bag is a person. The smell of leather and adventure is intoxicating. Stickers from fabulous destinations and hotels adorn the bags. These were people who had the luxury of planning their migration and tidily packing their possessions into fashionable luggage. From Honoré Daumier's (1808–1879) bronze relief to Yinka Shonibare CBE's (b. 1962) Refugee Astronaut IX (2024), Fenix artworks more commonly share the archetypal migrant/refugee posture: hunched over, meager possessions slung across the back in a makeshift sack, trudging forward, head down, future uncertain. No romance or adventure in this silhouette. Most affecting, however, are the nearly 200 pictures presented in 'The Family of Migrants' exhibition. Taken by 136 photographers from 55 countries between 1905 and the weeks before Fenix' opening, the photos are a mix of documentary images, portraits, and journalist photography drawn from international archives, museum collections, image banks, and newspapers. People being arrested at borders. People hiding from border agents under cars. Babies being passed through barbed wire. Mothers cradling children. Man's capacity for barbarism exposed. Just outside Fenix' walls was something called the 'Pier of Tears.' From that standpoint, millions of weeping family members and friends said 'goodbye'–often forever–to loved ones headed across the ocean. Tears for strangers flow as freely inside 'The Family of Migrants.' Good. Tears mean these migrants are seen as people. Fenix art museum in Rotterdam. Iwan Baan A museum of migration belongs in Rotterdam. The quays around this warehouse saw millions of emigrants board ships bound for destinations such as America and Canada. Today, Rotterdam possesses one of Europe's most robust migrant populations. Rotterdam has a long history as a trading and transportation hub. Its huge, deep-water port and strategic location with easy access to the North Sea and Rhine River make it an ideal thoroughfare for shipping and the gateway to Europe. Until 2004, Rotterdam had the busiest port in the world. That distinction now resides in China. In the 19th century, Rotterdam's port facilities and infrastructure as an international trade hub grew dramatically, expanding to meet the new demands and opportunities generated by the industrial revolution, with larger steam ships, mechanized loading cranes, and steel bridges connecting both sides of the Maas River. Pictures of boat traffic on the Maas during this period look like cars in Midtown Manhattan at 4 o'clock on a Friday afternoon. The 16,000-square-meter warehouse Fenix inhabits was at the heart of this. Completed in 1923, the building, known as the San Francisco Warehouse, served as an important storage and trans-shipment building for the Holland America Line – a successful Dutch cargo and passenger company founded in Rotterdam in 1873. Following bombing by the Germans in World War II and a fire, the warehouse was rebuilt in the 1950s as two separate buildings, Fenix I and Fenix II–as in 'rising like a Phoenix.' The Fenix II Warehouse has undergone an extensive transformation to become the Fenix museum, ensuring this fine example of Rotterdam port architecture is preserved for the future. The building's centerpiece is the Tornado, an organic, dynamic structure evocative of rising air. This reflective, metallic, double-helix staircase climbs from the ground floor, flowing up and out of the rooftop onto a viewing platform looking over the city. The River Mass flows in front of the museum. The former headquarters of the Holland America Line sit 250 yards away. Rotterdam's Euromast can be easily seen from one vantage point, the striking Erasmus Bridge from another, the old S.S. Rotterdam steamship, now a tourist attraction, from another still. Beijing's Ma Yansong of MAD Architects imagined the Tornado. Serendipitously, the harbor-side neighborhood of Katendrecht that Fenix calls home was formerly the first Chinatown in continental Europe–migrants. Cape Verdean sailors and Surinamese jazz musicians–migrants–also found a home there. Insightful walking tours of Katendrecht are available in English on a limited basis. Inquire here. ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS - APRIL 3: A water taxi navigates past the former building of the Holland Amerika Line, now a hotel and restaurant in the Port of Rotterdam on April 3, 2025 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The Holland Amerika Line transported hundreds of thousands of European migrants from Rotterdam to New York between 1873 and the 1970s. The port of Rotterdam is the largest seaport in Europe and a key transit point for trade with the US, particularly oil products. (Photo by) Getty Images Rotterdam doesn't spring to mind for most Americans considering a European vacation. Change that. Especially if your passion is art. And especially if your passion is architecture. Rotterdam was mostly leveled during World War II; the German bombing commenced on May 14, 1940, 85 years plus two days from the opening of Fenix. The Port's strategic value to the Allied war effort made it a desirable target. Anyone looking for old-timey, medieval streets and structures, keep looking. After the War, the city dedicated itself to becoming a world-class destination for architectural innovation. It has achieved that goal. Understand this, too, when thinking about Rotterdam for holiday: Amsterdam has too many tourists. Amsterdam wants fewer tourists. Rotterdam is happy to oblige the overflow, and being less than an hour's train ride away, travelers can comfortably stay in Rotterdam, day trip to Amsterdam, visit the Rikjsmuseum and Van Gogh Museum, then bop back to less expensive hotels and meals, and fewer crowds. Hotel nhow makes for an ideal headquarters from which to experience Rotterdam and the surrounding region. Its blocky outline stands as one of the most distinct on the Rotterdam skyline. Views of the Erasmus Bridge from its seventh-floor terrace café are the best in the city. Fenix is only 700 meters from nhow. When the Netherlands national museum of photography moves into its new home later in 2025, it will be about that same distance in the other direction. Across the street is a Metro station taking passengers directly to Rotterdam Central Station–and transfer to Amsterdam–or all the way along the E line to The Haag in 40 minutes–no switching trains–where Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665) awaits at the Mauritshuis. And Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp (1632). And Carel Fabritius' The Goldfinch (1654). Delft with its world-famous blue pottery sits tidily between The Haag and Rotterdam. Paris. London. Rome. The Netherlands via Rotterdam has something for you when talking about seeing great art. Henk Chabot, 'Refugees with child in white cloth,' 1943. Oil on canvas. Chadd Scott In Rotterdam, the Depot of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is the world's first publicly accessible art storage facility. It stores all the artwork while the museum next door undergoes a decade-long restoration. Art history nerds will want to be sure to stop in for a look at one of Pieter Bruegel's The Tower of Babel (1568) paintings. Adjacent to the Depot is Nieuwe Institute, a museum for architecture, design, and digital culture. On view through October 11, 2025, find an exhibition devoted to Fenix Tornado architect Ma. Also here in the city's museum park are Kunsthal Rotterdam and the Chabot Museum Rotterdam. Dutch expressionist Henk Chabot's (1894-1949) paintings would feel right at home at Fenix. He watched the bombing of Rotterdam from his home just outside the city and dedicated his artmaking during the war years to the country's migrant refugees. How might the contemporary migrant/refugee conversation be different if today's migrants looked like Chabot's migrants, northern European, instead of African or Latin American? The can't-miss Chabot Museum is housed in one of Rotterdam's most beautiful modernist villas. CHINATOWN WALKING TOUR View of western extent of Port of Rotterdam as seen over the rooftop of Portlantis. © Ossip van Duivenbode Further afield, out where the North Sea meets mainland Europe at the Port of Rotterdam's western-most point, Portlantis opened in March of 2025. Here, visitors learn all about how the Port works. How its 192,000 employees and 3,000 companies process 14 million containers per year. Anyone interested in engineering, construction, chemistry, transportation, or logistics will find it fascinating. Portlantis sits on dredge-and-fill sand. This was the North Sea until 2013 when the bustling port required expansion. From the rooftop balcony, views over dune to the sea, of the enormous windmills, and across to the port reveal its unimaginable scale. As does transport to Portlantis. The Port of Rotterdam is a full 45 kilometers long. It goes on and on and on. This is not the touristy, architecturally dazzling Rotterdam. This is the working Rotterdam. The Rotterdam of industry, warehouses, trucking, oil refinery, and calloused hands. The large mound visible from the Portlantis roof is contaminated soil. All the products and natural resources making our modern lives possible come through here, the same products destroying the planet and the same natural resources extracted elsewhere with a heavy ecological toll paid by the residents there. The Port is a complex place in more ways than one. Curious travelers keen on complexity will never forget it. Unless traveling by car, Portlantis can be a little tricky to get to for newcomers involving a Metro ride, ferry, and finally free shuttle bus to the building. It's worth the effort. Once there, bus and boat tours into the guts of the port are available.
