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Anyone driving on the Finnenburg towards Mariahoeve station in The Hague will see a meter-high bright blue arch on which a silver disc balances on the right. As if drawn in the air. Even from the train (The Hague - Amsterdam) you can catch a glimpse of this monumental work of art. Totally abstract and yet: popularly called the discus thrower. André van Lier is the artist.

Van Lier is certainly no stranger to The Hague. A good number of his sculptures can be seen on the streets. Think of Pressed Circles on the Zoo Bridge or Roadline near the Schenk Viaduct. Besides sculptures, the artist has always designed furniture and founded his own studio for architecture and urban design (DAVL Studio) with two colleagues.

In all his work, mathematical forms such as the square, the circle or the ellipse are the starting point. These he examines thoroughly. For example, how does such a shape behave when you fold it, what happens if you cut it, bend it a little. The starting point is something mathematical, but in the elaboration there is a certain randomness involved, a feeling. Van Lier consciously seeks the field of tension in between: what is credible when you look at it and what is possible according to mathematical laws.

In the early 1990s, Van Lier focused his form research on the circle. During that period, he created dozens of sculptures in which a circular shape was the starting point. At that time he received a commission from the Benelux Office for Intellectual Property (BIOP) for a work at their new building on Bordewijklaan designed by architect Herman Hertzberger. This sculpture has stood there in the garden since 1994. Van Lier specially placed the sculpture in the middle of a round elevation. In this way, the immediate surroundings and the sculpture also enter into a relationship with each other.