The city centre, which was largely destroyed in 1940, is a patchwork of architectural styles: icons of the Nieuwe Bouwen school of modernist Dutch architecture stand alongside characteristic post-war reconstruction architecture from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. These historic buildings clash cheerfully with the hypermodern skyscrapers built in more recent decades.Even before the reconstruction era, Rotterdam was known for its groundbreaking architecture. The housing projects designed by Michiel Brinkman and J.J.P. Oud, the first gallery apartment building in the Netherlands (the Bergpolder flat) by Van Tijen, the Sonneveld House (now a museum home), and the Van Nelle Factory by Brinkman & Van der Vlugt turned Rotterdam into the cradle of Nieuwe Bouwen architecture. Since these projects fortunately survived the bombardment unscathed, they can still be viewed today. The Van Nelle Factory even made it onto the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2014.