A "Stadstimmerhuis" (translated literally: "city carpentry house") is the office of the municipal service that deals with building and construction. It is named after the profession of civil carpenter, and later civil architect or master builder. An earlier Stadstimmerhuis in Rotterdam was located on the Haringvliet, but was destroyed in the Second World War during the German bombing of Rotterdam in World War II. Then, from the early 1940s to 1953, the Stadstimmerhuis was located as an emergency building near the cattle market, between the Warande and the Goudse Rijweg, on the Boezemweg. This emergency building was still in use after 1953. In 1947, municipal architect J.R.A. Koops designed the new Stadstimmerhuis, originally conceived as an elongated building on the Haagseveer with four wings at right angles to each other. Ultimately, only one of the four wings was realized: the one on the Meent. In this way, an L-shaped office building was created on the Meent and the Haagseveer. Its construction took place between 1950 and 1953; it was one of the first larger buildings in the empty center of Rotterdam to be erected after the bombing.