In 1940 the inner city of Rotterdam was bombed by German air force. While other bombed cities in Europe were rebuild historically, Rotterdam was designed according to the functionalist ideas of Le Corbusier. The plan for a brand new, modern city was in secret concocted by industrials and businessmen who thought the former 600 years old city center was filthy, poor and narrow and a hindrance for economic growth. Deliberately they cut all ties with the old city and got rid of ‘the heavy burdens of the past’. In no time the rubble of the city was cleared. 144 historic buildings that could have been saved were nevertheless demolished. A new city center was created for trade companies, banks, shops and cars.On the basis of the reconstruction plan lay an integrally designed traffic circuit that connected to a larger network of roads to the harbor. Very few houses were build. Residents had to moved to the outskirts of the ciity, the working people left the city in the evening. Untill recentenly you could ‘shoot a cannon’ from 6 o’clock in the evening In the center of Rotterdam. What happened to the old city? DNA Rotterdam is a photographic research for the traces of the old town. Unknown and undetected the fragments of the old city lwere spread across the Netherlands. Dykes, airfields, forest paths, roads and industrial areas were built along the Flevopolder, Leeuwarden, Steenwijk, Hilversum, Dordrecht, Hoek van Holland, Schiedam and Oisterwijk. Girths and ditches were drained with it and complete residential areas in Dordrecht, Hoek van Holland were made from the debris.