Artwork Data
Artwork Location
Address
Meester P. Droogleever Fortuynweg 50, Den Haag
City district
Escamp
GPS data
52.052649882921, 4.2906853056488 View on map
To be found on route
Artwork Description
Text
Where once stood the Zuiderpark stadium of ADO Den Haag, a brand-new Sports Campus arose in 2017. The building by FaulknerBrowns Architects has a striking steel facade that changes colour every second under the influence of weather and light. The complex accommodates both top sportsmen and sportswomen and schoolchildren. It also houses the sports academy of the Haagse Hogenschool. The new sports campus should not only give sports a new impulse, but also the Zuiderpark itself and the surrounding area.
The construction of the Sport Campus also meant a different layout of the park. How do you direct the traffic of all those sportsmen and women and visitors and provide sufficient parking space? It was therefore decided to abandon the original main entrance at Veluweplein and make the entrance at Melis Stokelaan the main entrance from now on. In order to mark this entrance and to clearly indicate the access to the Sport Campus, a gate was added, just as on Veluweplein. Roel Buijs was responsible for the design.
Buijs devised four square towers of Corten steel, each about 3 metres high. He used two steel plates on top of each other. He had little sports figures stamped out of one plate and then attached them to the other. At the bottom, the four columns are fairly dense, but as they rise, more and more air enters the drawing. Like the Woman and Man by sculptor Corine Helsenfeld-Fránzen on Veluweplein, the figures in Buijs' towers also make it clear: you can play sports here in Zuiderpark.