Middle screen of the Caland Canal Windscreen, 1983-1985, in collaboration with Maarten Struijs, city architect Rotterdam.
‘Thanks to the contribution of Frans, the diagonal placement [of the central screen] and the beam, the architectural ambition to solve it in series became possible. Here, landscape, architecture and visual art flow into each other in a beautiful way.' Maarten Struijs, architect

‘The Caland Canal Windscreen’ is a 25 meter high rhythmic series of either semicircular or square concrete elements standing in regular intervals alongside 1.7 kilometers of the Caland Canal. It is divided in three parts: a South, a North and a Middle screen. The Windscreen was designed as a solution to break the wind gusts that affected container shipping vessels when there was a wind force higher than 5. The Windscreen protects the ships from colliding to the bank or the Caland Bridge or waiting for a lower wind force, and at the same time it ensures 24/7 passage to the Port of Rotterdam.

The north and south wind barriers had already been designed by the city architect Maarten Struijs. De Wit designed the central screen in collaboration with Struijs. Because of the diagonal placement of this ‘Middle screen’ in between the ‘North and South screen’ it stands out as an autonomous part of the entire screen, while also unifying the compositions individual parts.
De Wit conceived the horizontal beam at 5 meters height in the ‘Middle screen’ as a solution for the foundation and to accommodate traffic, but also to keep the rhythm of the semicircles intact. This was important to De Wit and Struijs both. The concrete beam enabled to make open spaces for traffic on the bottom side and to place a series of semicircular elements with regular intervals on the top. It also enriched the composition of the screen with the unification of regularity and irregularity in a series. To create a shimmer of light in the structure, De Wit attached stainless steel plates to the side of the beam.

The Caland Canal Windscreen, 1983-1985, 1,7 km x 25 m, consists of:
• ‘South Screen’ by Maarten Struijs: 25 semicircular concrete elements with a diameter of 18 meters and a height of 25 meters with intervals of 12 meter.
• ‘Middle screen’, by Frans de Wit in collaboration with Maarten Struijs, 58 semicircular concrete elements with a diameter of 4 meter and a height of 25 meter, concrete beam with rvs sheet on 5 meters high, connecting the 58 elements.
• ‘North screen’ by Maarten Struijs: 49 concrete walls, 10x10 meter on a 15 meter high dike.
• A fourth screen was installed in 2018, due to the relocation of the train tracks. The composition reflects De Wit’s ‘Middle Screen’.