Artwork Data

Title

Boomhuizen

Artist

Florentijn Hofman

Year

2009

Material

hout

Artwork Location

Address

Terwestenstraat, Den Haag

City district

Centrum

GPS data

52.065473434706, 4.3009431907379 View on map

Artwork Description

Text

In the spring of 2009, two large holes were dug in the two schoolyards of the newly built primary school on Terwestenstraat. A few hours later, two large trees were planted. These thirty-year-old plane trees had been specially selected by artist Florentijn Hofman for their specific crown and branch formation. The trees were to support the two tree houses he had made for the new building.

In each tree there is a different kind of wooden house. The one on the left has a veranda and a dormer. This gives it a somewhat romantic look. This is in contrast to the more bare house on the other square. This one seems to come straight from the Schilderswijk: three storeys of houses above a shop.

Children cannot enter the tree houses, but they can see them clearly from the schoolyard and the surrounding classrooms. For Hofman, the tree houses refer to the dreams that you still have in abundance as a primary school child. Then you are not yet hindered by grades and achievement as in the hard world of secondary education and work.

Hofman achieved instant national fame in 2004 with his 'Beukelsblauw'. For this, he had a row of 19th-century buildings in Rotterdam painted blue from head to toe. Shortly afterwards, he also caused a furore internationally. Since 2007, his enormous, inflatable 'Rubber Duck' has been popping up all over the world.

Hofman usually works in public spaces. There, he makes large, universally recognisable sculptures that have a clear relationship to their surroundings in terms of size, material and content. He does not put art on a pedestal. A sculpture must have the quality to make people stop,' he said in an interview in the magazine Kunstbeeld (October 2010). It is difficult to say whether the tree houses literally make the children stand still. They certainly do.

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