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What a contrast. The imposing high-rise buildings that arose in the early 1990s between Central Station and the historical centre of The Hague bear poetic names such as Calliope and Muzenstraat. Top architect Rob Krier was asked to draw up an urban development plan in 1988, which he then had fellow architects complete. De Resident was the result.

The naming of this post-modern district has its origins in the Building for Arts and Sciences that stood in this neighbourhood on Zwarteweg from 1874 to 1964. In classical Greek mythology, muses are the children of the supreme god Zeus and Mnemosyne (memory). The nine goddesses led by the god Apollo are personifications of the various arts and sciences. Calliope, for example, was the muse of epic poetry, philosophy and rhetoric.

In De Resident, it is not only the street names that reveal a love of art. There is also a lot of art to be seen. Sometimes made by the participating architects themselves, sometimes by artists. In Muzenstraat, there is sculpture by Roberto Barni. This Italian painter and sculptor worked for a long time with the Italian architect Adolfo Natalini on international architecture projects. For De Resident, Natalini designed the architecture around Muzenstraat and Barni created the bronze sculptures in the circular openings of the two concrete air arches connecting the two halves of the street. In the arches, Barni placed representations of a man with a tree. Next to one of the trees is a small dog. An everyday scene that puts one's feet back on the ground amidst the imposing architecture.

What exactly Barni wanted to express with the title Andante e adagio is hard to say. Perhaps he found these musical terms for tempo applicable to his sculptures of people in motion: calm and comfortable.