Van Nellefabriek was designed and built in the 1920s on the banks of a canal in the Spaanse Polder industrial zone north-west of Rotterdam. The site is one of the icons of 20th-century industrial architecture, comprising a complex of factories, with fa&ccedil;ades consisting essentially of steel and glass, making large-scale use of the curtain wall principle. It was conceived as an &lsquo;ideal factory&rsquo;, open to the outside world, whose interior working spaces evolved according to need, and in which daylight was used to provide pleasant working conditions. It embodies the new kind of…