Wervel

Bus stops involve people waiting, which makes them a perfect location for a work of art. In the Oosterstraat a news ticker has been installed between two stainless steel columns. Instead of passenger information, texts are displayed about travelling, buses, and heart and lungs. The texts were written by author Jacques Brooijmans and most of them are poetic or philosophical.  In the Oosterstraat is a transparent synthetic heart in neon light above the columns. In the Gelkingestraat, that runs parallel to the Oosterstraat, lungs are placed above the columns. The organs refer to the centre and periphery of the city. When you enter the city by bus, you first pass the red heart, a symbol for the centre and the dynamic liveliness surrounding it. When leaving the city via the Gelkingestraat, buses pass the green lungs that refer to the tranquillity and space in the suburbs.

Artist Willem Valk applied tongues of fire and a crystal shape on this bronze commemorative tablet that symbolise the text on the bronze plate: ‘Toen rees uit oorlog en vuur / het helder kristal van de vrede’. (Then, from war and fire/rose the clear crystal of peace.) The text refers to the fierce battle that was involved in the liberation of the city of Groningen by the Canadian armed forces. On 13 April 1945 they entered the city, after which the disastrous battles for the Grote Markt took place. Many historic buildings went up in flames and the heart of the city was mutilated by shellfire. On Monday 16 April the Canadians surrounded and closed off the city centre and the last resistance broke.

Ons Blauwe Hart (Our Blue Heart) is a work of art that provides access to much more art. Artist Erwin Stienstra has hidden a large number of QR codes in the patterns of the giant Dutch tile tableau. Scanning these codes with a telephone provides information about various topics concerning Groningen city centre, such as poems by city poet Stefan Nieuwenhuis in addition to portraits of Groningen residents that the OOG TV broadcasting station recorded in the Gelkingestraat; historic stories and ‘just’ a list of current places of interest. The digital work or art between the old-Dutch looking tiled wall is constantly changing because it is continuously updated with new information.

When Vroom & Dreesman (V&D) opened its doors in 1958, the management of the department store presented this statue to the city of Groningen. Bro Bro Brille was created by Gunnar Westman, based on a Danish children’s song. ‘Bro Bro Brille’ means Bridge Bridge Brille, a children’s game. Westman’s sculpture has a closed shape and was made from a cylinder-shaped piece of granite from an old roller the basic shape of which can still be clearly seen. The movements the sculptures make – dancing in a circle – seems to be adapted to the shape of the material.

Until the construction of the motorway and the Emma viaduct in the 1960s the Herebrug was one of the main entrance roads to the city, which made the Herebrug (1879) an important bridge.  During the liberation in April 1945 the bridge suffered immense damage, and a new one was built in 1952. It was constructed from concrete surrounded by natural stones and bricks. The Groningen coat of arms – a two-headed eagle – was incorporated into the handrail and the bridgeman’s house. In addition, artist Wladimir de Vries was asked to create a work of art for the bridge, resulting in a young woman carrying ears of corn with a lying calf at her feet. The work symbolises the alliance between the city and its surrounding area.

It is hardly visible from the outside, but today this municipal monument forms a whole with the adjacent former bank building. They are connected via a spaciously laid out glass stairwell. The monumental part was built around 1829, and was expanded in 1924. A new part was added in 1993, and the buildings have been combined to make room for the Protestant Theological University. 

It can hardly be seen on the ground floor, but if you look up the façade you will see an impressive mansion. The presumed year of construction can be read at the top of the richly adorned façade: 1661. Originally the building stretched far into the Jacobijnerstraat and the residents used to house their coaches and horses in the back part of the complex (which no longer exists). Until a major renovation in 1923 it also had distinctive steps by the front door. Before councillor Andreas Ludolphi had the house built, the ground was owned by the Dominicans, who founded the city’s largest monastery complex between the Jacobijnerstraat and the Hofstraat. In 1308, thanks to a gift from the Groningen prefect the ground on which this house was built had belonged to the Dominicans, who were also referred to as Jacobins after their first church in Paris. Their order founded the largest monastery complex in the city between the Jacobijnerstraat and the Hofstraat.

These four reed stems were designed by René de Boer, who used an existing well at the location of his design as a starting point: the ENT clinic of the Academisch Ziekenhuis Groningen hospital. The transformed the well into a square pond with a moving reed stem at each side. The four reed stems were made from welded brass. Their exterior is smooth and round while their interior has irregular and organic shapes. The whimsical transition from the round and austere exterior to the organic interior suggests a rupture in the stems. The stalks balance on weathering steel ‘holders’ with two points and move in the wind. In 1987 the ENT clinic was demolished after which the sculpture went into storage for a long time. Since then it has received a new location at the Oostersingel on the UMCG hospital grounds.

Artist Aryaan Harshage designed a bluestone floor decoration for the entrance of the public library. He placed two squares at the beginning and end of the access street from which various letters were cut away. The letters are mixed up on the first tile (in front of the entrance gate on the street side) and in the second tile they are neatly ordered from A to Z. The two diamond shapes are connected by two long and narrow bands, and perpendicular to these are two paths in front of the entrance toward the side of the entrance street in the direction of the wall. These lines emphasise the connection with the building’s architecture.

The more than life-sized sculpture by Henk Visch is a bronze figure of a man who stretches forward while resting on his fingertips, providing the pose with tension. Visch’s sculptures are not easy to interpret. They have poetic beauty and invite personal interpretations. His works are mainly characterised by mysteriousness, which is enhanced even more by the titles, as in this case.  Secret Life in a Public Body  refers to ‘a secret life’, but does Visch’s public body refer to his sculpture or its location? And what exactly are these secrets? The work of art was in the Westerhaven underground car park for five years where it took the place of exactly one parking space. It was in striking contrast with the glossy vehicles. On 31 March 2009 it was relocated to the square of the Voormalig Klein Poortje at the Oosterhaven.

There is no way you can miss this work of art at the Universitair Medisch Centrum hospital square which comprises nine rough broken fragments surrounding a smoothly polished granite sculpture. The polished sculpture slightly resembles a head and consists of ninety stacked blocks of red granite. The stack results in a pattern of lines that seem to refer to the thinking process of human beings and the complex network of the brain. According to artist Sigurdur Gudmundsson, the Swedish red granite used to create the work is in keeping with the colour of Groningen. In the 1960s the artist lived in Zandeweer, a small village in the north of the province of Groningen, and Gudmondsson’s colour experience is based on the typical redness of the older buildings in the Groningen villages and cities. The bricks received their characteristic red colour because the fatty sea clay – the raw material for the Groningen brick manufacturing – is ferriferous.

Some things do not catch the eye until the sun shines, such as in the case of this work by Saar Oosterhof. She applied rhinestones in irregular distances from one another in the Pelsterstraat pavement. The stones only shine when they catch a ray of sun. The built-in holograms provide the stones with depth and their shape changes with every movement. Each stone was handmade by the artist from a cast mixture of resin, colour pigments and glitter. The rhinestones mark the place of a former Groningen town rampart.