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Halfway between the Town Hall and the Bijenkorf department store, you start to notice sculptures on the pavement and along the road. As you stroll along, you discover more and more of them. They all stand on an almost identical pedestal. However, the sculptures themselves are extremely different. This 'Sculpture Gallery' was conceived in 1990 by visual artist Peter Struycken and commissioned by Stroom Den Haag. It was the first major sculpture project of this institution.

In the busy pedestrian area of Grote Marktstraat, Kalvermarkt and Spui, Struycken placed a sculpture every 25 metres. Forty in total. To establish a link between the sculptures and the surrounding architecture, he devised a uniform pedestal. The dimensions of the sculpture and pedestal, respectively 180-200 cm (maximum) and 95 cm (maximum) high, are in proportion to the surrounding buildings.

Ceramicist Geert Lap (1951) designed the pedestal. Lap chose an oval shape with a core of granite. A steel sleeve is placed over the plinth, onto which the various artists can attach their sculptures. Due to this construction and the dimensions, the sculptures fit into a transport cage. In this way, the sculptures can change place with some regularity, so that the sculpture ribbon always remains surprising.

When the pedestrian zone Grote Marktstraat, Kalvermarkt and Spui was completed in 2010, there were eventually forty sculptures on as many plinths. All of them were made by Dutch sculptors. Some of them enjoy national and even international recognition, others are mainly known in The Hague and its surroundings. Together they offer the passer-by a cross-section of Dutch sculpture at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. Which sculpture belongs to whom can be read on the round bronze text plates that lie in the ground next to each sculpture. The Hague illustrative typographer Rudo Hartman (1945) was responsible for their design.

The fact that all pedestals have been occupied since 2010 does not mean the end of the project. In the meantime, the Hague sculptor André Kruysen has succeeded P. Struycken as curator. He has the task of periodically changing the position of the sculptures. In addition, he ensures that the gallery is enriched with new sculptures. In this way, 'De Beeldengalerij' will continue to offer an up-to-date overview of Dutch sculpture in the future.