An interesting sculpture of a very tall man placed in the neighbourhood park of the Oude Westen, in Rotterdam. It got me curious.
This is Rigardus Rijnhout (Rotterdam, 21 April 1922 – Leiden, 13 April 1959). He was known as the Giant of Rotterdam due to his height of 2 meters and 37 centimetres!
According to the local news blog, Rigardus was born on 21 April 1922 and weighed eight kilos at birth! Rigardus had a growth disorder due to a tumour in his head. At his peak, he measured 2.37 meters tall and weighed 230 kilos. Truly a giant!!
Rigardus required about 5x as much food as most men. His poor family struggled to feed him growing up. He spent his time posing for photos, selling postcards of himself and as a walking billboard for local companies. People considered him one of the friendliest residents of Rotterdam.
His health deteriorated after a bicycle accident, became disabled and remained in a wheelchair for the final years of his life. He died from a pituitary tumor at the age of 36 years old.
In June 2011, a life-size bronze statue sculpted by artist Herman Lamers was unveiled. It was erected right here in a park, close to the giant’s old house where he grew up and lived all his life, which is now a Chinese supermarket (behind it). The giant stands in a lifelike pose, in the contours of a house with a regular-sized doorframe, a chair and his giant shoes size 62.
This monument symbolizes the position of ‘the underdog’, but at the same time also represents the ‘growth’ of the city of Rotterdam.
đź“ŤWest-Kruiskade, Rotterdam.
Rigardus Rijnhout is the second-tallest Dutchman in history, after Albert Jan Kramer (Amsterdam, 15 June 1897 – Aldaar, 4 April 1976) with a height of 2.42 meters.