The Lijnbaan is the main shopping street of Rotterdam

Rotterdam

Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...

. It was opened in 1953, as the main pedestrian street in the new shopping district, after the old shopping district was completely destroyed during the bombing of Rotterdam by the German Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....

. It was designed by the firm Van den Broek & Bakema led by architects Jo van den Broek and Jacob B. Bakema

Jacob B. Bakema

Jacob Berend Bakema was a Dutch modernist architect, notable for his public housing and involvement in the reconstruction of Rotterdam after the Second World War....

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It's a complete car-free

Car-free

Car-free can refer to several things:*Pedestrian zones*Car-free movement...

 zone and has been a testcase for numerous car-free shopping streets around the world.

Nowadays there are plans to redevelop the street as part of bigger redevelopments of the shopping district. The Beurstraverse (by de Architekten Cie) is a good example of these redevelopments.