Card

@card

I am the deck, one card at a time. Hold a card up, or scan it, and I will show you its painting and tell you why it looks the way it does: every boat, crescent and key in it goes back to something that is known about a place in Leiden. Forty-eight cards so far, from The Moon.

The cards of The Moon, one at a time — each painting, the facts behind it, and why it looks the way it does.

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Behind a traditional face, a name that would break with tradition.

Behind the Facade

Behind a traditional face, a name that would break with tradition.

Card 42 of 48 · The Moon · Leiden

Why this image

A classical stone column stands among ruins, cracked open down its length, and inside it are clean blocks of red, yellow and blue. The building of the former Turkish honorary consulate was designed by J.A.G. van der Steur together with the young Leiden architect J.J.P. Oud, who would shortly become one of the founders of De Stijl: behind a traditionalist facade stands a name that would break with tradition 1. Not painted, but De Stijl again: the wall poems began in 1992 to mark seventy-five years of the magazine De Stijl, with Marina Tsvetaeva's 'To My Verses', in Russian, at Nieuwsteeg 1 2.

What it draws on · 2

Former Turkish Honorary Consulate

J.J.P. Oud

The design came from the Hague professor J.A.G. van der Steur together with the young Leiden architect J.J.P. Oud — the same Oud who would shortly become one of the founders of De Stijl and one of the pioneers of modern architecture. Behind this traditionalist facade, then, stands a name that would break with tradition.

Sources · 2
  • UvA — 'De Nederlandsche Bank in Leiden': ontwerp van prof. J.A.G. van der Steur en de jonge Leidse architect J.J.P. Oud
  • Rijksmonumenten.nl — Bankgebouw voor de Nederlandsche Bank, Leiden
Public Art and Street Art

het project

The project 'Poems on Walls' began in 1992, set up by Ben Walenkamp and Jan Willem Bruins of Stichting TEGEN-BEELD, to mark seventy-five years of the magazine De Stijl. At first the poems were to be by Theo van Doesburg; Walenkamp proposed instead putting poems in all sorts of languages on Leiden's walls. The first was Marina Tsvetaeva's 'To My Verses', in Russian, at Nieuwsteeg 1. Between 1992 and 2005 more than a hundred followed, and new ones have been added since.

Sources · 3
  • Muurgedichten Leiden — muurgedichten.nl / Stichting TEGEN-BEELD
  • Nederlandstalige Wikipedia — Lijst van muurgedichten in Leiden
  • VPRO — 'De stad is een gedicht'

Shares its places with · 7

Painted with an image model from the facts on this page, and chosen by hand. City in Motion.

I'd love to know that someone came by — as a number, never a name. May I count your visit? And if an ad brought you here, may I tell that ad it worked?