Art along the Pieterpad in Groningen.

"The pasture area to the north of the Selwerderhof cemetery has a rich history. In the Middle Ages, there was Selwerd Castle, Maria Virgo monastery and also a gallows field. A watchtower – designed by Maarten Schmidt – offers a view of the sloping grassland that was once the Selwerd castle grounds. 

This history is the starting point of the four poems that can be read in the four Corten steel hands in the area. The poems were written by Jan van den Berg, Albertina Soepboer and Lammert Tiesinga. The shape of the hands corresponds to that of the respective poets. 

The hands mark the location of the former castle grounds. Remnants of the castle were discovered by chance in the 1990's, when the area was being prepared for construction of the Zernike campus. In the Middle Ages, the castle was home to the Lords of Selwerd. They ruled Groningen from the twelfth century onwards. A notorious descendant of this lineage was Rudolf van Prediker, who was also known as the “Pirate of the Reitdiep”. He was beheaded in 1357 by the rulers of the city of Groningen. 

Artwork Levensloop ('Relay of Life') consists of a signpost that is equipped with signs on which the continents and their degrees of latitude and latitude are mentioned. At the bottom of the signpost is a mountain of cast aluminum shoes. Levensloop symbolizes the people who live in Selwerd and Paddepoel and the path they have traveled in their lives. Shoes from local residents were collected for this work of art and then cast in aluminium.

In the playground of highschool Kamerlingh Onnes is a sculpture whose geometric shapes closely match the sleek architecture of the school building. However, the blue colour of the piece contrasts sharply with the predominantly red building. 
 
The statue consists of two separate metal sheets that were originally one whole. A circular segment has been “cut” from a square, creating a part with a concave side and a part with a convex side. Although it is possible to walk between the two sheets, both parts come together again to form a square when viewed directly from the front. This blue concave/convex sculpture, in which the letters “K” and “O” can be recognised, is also the basis for the design inside the school. For example, the blue concave and convex shapes can be found in various places in the building, such as in the doors and in the signage to the classrooms. 

The mosaic project in the bicycle tunnel in the Moesstraat consists of a colourful variety of motifs related to nature. Artist and local resident Jacqueline Smid supervised this project. She went looking for artists from the neighbourhood to create the design. She then moved into the neighbourhood to invite people to participate in the project. Approximately 120 local residents worked in workshops on making the mosaic, gluing the tile pieces with bookbinder's glue on a pre-drawn design of fibreglass, similar to the method used for a colouring board. After the whole image was covered with mosaic tiles, the fibreglass was cut into pieces of 50 x 50 cm and then placed on the viaduct by tilers. 

Barefoot, with her knees raised and her head back, the girl basks in the sun. The statue, which the audience calls Sun-worshipper (Zonaanbidster), makes a massive impression because the figure is represented in basic shapes. Naturalistic details such as muscles, hair or pleats in her dress are omitted. The block of limestone from which the sculpture is made is still clearly visible in the contours of the sitting girl. Until 1954, the girl was in the grass. However, the then Municipal Department of Urban Planning and Housing objected to this and gave her a plinth

Since 2011 Jan Steen's cheerful frog artwork has been standing between the tables of De Sigaar's terrace. The artwork goes from lifelike tadpole to a frog fantasy figure with a long beak in six steps. The initiative to create a terrace with artwork on this spot comes from real estate entrepreneur Wijnand van Smeden. He probably chose this location not entirely coincidentally: his own office is a few doors away, at number 4.

The Jugendstilpand at Brugstraat 7 was built in 1904 to the design of father and son Hoekzema. On either side of the portico, which is closed off by an ornate wrought iron fence, there are two corbels with monkeys. The statues are made of hard stone: a blue-black natural stone that is mainly mined in Belgium and France and is also called “petite granite” or bluestone. The maker of the monkeys is unknown. Under the eaves of the building there are tile tableaux with art nouveau images of peacocks with lilies, a beehive and a Mercury wand. The scenes depicted refer to the commercial function of this building.

This painted gate has a keystone dated 1683 and it forms the entrance to an alleyway between two monumental buildings at the A-Kerhof ZZ. The crowning glory of this gate is the dubious bust with grotesque facial features. On either side of this bust, which is ochre, grey-blue and red, are two white spheres.

Henri de Wolf's plaque adorns the side facade of café De Beurs. In 1885, the Groningen section of the Social Democratic Union was founded in this building. One hundred years later, in honour of the centenary, this facing stone was unveiled. 
 
De Wolf, himself a socialist, designed the plaque and had it executed in marble and black granite. The artist opted for a trowel, reduced to a simple, geometric form; a few piled-up bricks embossed on the granite and a quotation from Karl Marx.

You're now in the Folkingestraat. In this street you find five artworks that are part of Imagine the past, a project realized in 1997, for which five artists have integrated works of art in the street in an unemphatic manner, which refer to the Jewish past of the Folkingestraat. For centuries this place was the center of a vibrant Jewish culture; something that the synagogue from 1905 still remembers. The Second World War brought this to an abrupt end, when many residents were deported to concentration camps.

For the artwork Galgal hamazalot by Joseph Semah you have to keep your eyes on the ground. Semah created a lunar cycle in the middle of the pavement of Folkingestraat: eleven bronze moon shapes, from full moon to new moon. When all the shapes are put together, an eye is created. The full moon acts as a pupil.

The word moon in Hebrew means eye and is also connected to the number eleven because numbers are linked to words in Hebrew. For Semah, the lunar cycle is a metaphor for the cycle of life and the cycles that make up history and the future.

Ook Hier ('Here Too') is a special work of art. De Kan had the word ‘(weggehaald)’ (‘('removed')’) milled out of the facade. In this way, he wants to emphasise the loss and emptiness in the Jewish and Groningen community after the Second World War. Placing the word between brackets accentuates not being present. De Kan wanted to show “that it is gone, without putting back what is gone". 

The inconspicuous location of the artwork also has a special reason. According to the artist, it is a subject that no longer lives with everyone, it has disappeared to the margins of attention. That's why he placed his artwork in the sideline, outside the direct field of view.

A horse butcher lived in the building at number 23 before the Second World War. Marijke Gémessy was inspired by this fact. This butcher was one of the many Jewish shopkeepers who contributed to the prosperity of Folkingestraat. At regular intervals, the horses were brought in and driven into the corridor to the slaughterhouse. The memory of this part of the past is now maintained by the ceramic relief Het voorgesneden paradepaard ('The pre-cut parade horse'). 
 
On the relief, a horse's hind legs can be seen in side view, life-size. Clasped between two walls we see it just walk into the butcher's shop, just before it will be slaughtered. The dissection – steak and loin – has already been made visible. It even has a quality mark. Behind the horse, authentic butcher's tiles can be seen, only the colour has been changed by the artist. Because of the reflective effect, the space seems larger. By placing the horse on a plinth, the work becomes not only a tribute to the former shopkeeper but also a tribute to the slaughtered horse.

Allie van Altena made enamel signs for three different porches. He found the photographs that he incorporated in this in the municipal archives. They were made at the beginning of this century in the same place where they now hang in the artist's work. 
 
They act as a mirror of the past. As a spectator, you become a witness to what once took place here, such as a street party or the performance of a theatre club. It creates a festive feeling that is further enhanced by the “confetti” scattered over the photographs.

In a wall with a bricked-up window on the corner building of Folkingestraat, Gert Sennema placed a door with a hard stone step in front of it. Nothing special in itself. The door, however, lacks a door handle, an opportunity to be opened.

The history of the Folkingestraat is hidden behind this closed door and window. A history that can only be retold by few, because most of the people who once lived there were taken away during the Second World War.

It looks like the door is made of solid wood, but on closer inspection it turns out to be made of bronze. Sennema treated it with patina, which evokes the structure and color of wood.

The facing bricks indicate the former function of the building. The head of a policeman and the handcuffs refer to the police station that was established here together with the Municipal Works Department.
 
With its stylised facing bricks, Valk reflected the Amsterdam School style of the building. In the nineteen-twenties, many buildings in Groningen were built in this style. One important aspect of the Amsterdam School is the integration of architecture and sculpture.

The memorial stone on the corner Ubbo Emmiusstraat/Coehoornsingel commemorates the destruction of the building Coehoornsingel 51. This happened in the last months of the Second World War, during the fighting between the Allies and the Germans. The tracked APC Kangaroo “Phyllis” was hit on this spot after the crew, had dropped their passengers consisting of eleven heavily armed soldiers of the Essex Scottish Regiment, near the Hereplein. After that the APC had gone the wrong way - into the dangerous Coehoornsingel - where it was attacked by the enemy using a Panzerfaust (a heavy armour piercing RPG). The building on Coehoornsingel 51, in which Cloetingh's bookshop was located at the time, was also destroyed. The building was rebuilt in 1946 and the commemorative stone bricked in. The story goes that at that time a certificate was also placed in a lead tube behind the stone.

Two shield-carrying lions guard the substructure near the Philippe Starck pavilion of the Groninger Museum. They probably came from a castle in Farmsum that was torn down in 1811. A lion shows the coat of arms of the Van Welvelde family. There are three roses and a shield head on it, surrounded by wolf heads. The other lion carries the coat of arms of the Ripperda family. A armoured, galloping rider waves his sword above the plumed helmet. The lions stand, very appropriately, at the Pavilion of Regional History.

A bridge that opens is not always good fun, but now it is: as soon as the H.N. Werkmanbrug rises, an enormous tableau unfolds, which appears to be Old Dutch because it seems to consist of all Delft blue tiles. In reality, the 'tiles' are sticker sheets on which non-existent children's games are depicted. The work comes from the Belgian artist Willem Delvoye. Groningen did not present one Manneken Pis with this work, but a whole series. Furthermore, many winds and buttocks. Children will therefore also appreciate this work very much.

In the rush of everyday life, we tend to run from place to place and forget to see beauty in things you 'know anyway.' Look up. This beautiful ceiling is made almost entirely of paper mache. In addition, the hall is a so-called 'salle des pas perdus', literally a 'room in which footsteps are lost'. The Groningen artist F.H. Bach (at the time a teacher at the Minerva art academy) refers not only to the acoustics, but also to the function of the hall. A waiting room in which people walk around to pass the time and move their feet more or less uselessly.

Above the roundabout in the bicycle shed, Giny Vos designed an inverted snow globe with a fairytale image of the station. As the day progresses, a play of light and dark turns the station building into a fairytale shadow of itself. In this way, the dome creates a connection in a special way between the monumental station and the modern city balcony.

The Stadsbalkon in front of the Central Station is a design by architect Kees Christiaanse. The upper part of the balcony is a raised square where travelers and passers-by can rest or stroll. Here is also the famous Groningen statue Het Peerd by Ome Loeks van Jan de Baat. Since its installation in 1959 at the main station, Het Peerd has become the city's mascotte.

In all of the Danish artist's work, the relationship between plane and space is an important component. The artwork consists of two parallel rows of six pillars connected across by arch constructions. These constructions are also located longitudinally between the pillars. Wall surfaces above and below, in a staggered rhythm, have been bricked up. Because wall and opening are always opposite each other, a spatial interplay of open and closed surfaces and an alternation of light and shadow is created.
 
Kirkeby makes use of elements from architecture, such as walls, gates and arches. His works can be entered and experienced as small buildings; the artist often places them in an architectural context. Sometimes they are located in a more natural environment, such as in the sculpture park of the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterloo.
 
Here in Groningen, the perpendicular structure forms a contrast in colour, scale and direction with the large building around it. The small brick building visually connects the two large wings of the KPN building.

This wall sculpture was installed on the east facade of the school building at the Muntinglaan 3 in 1965. It is made of glazed ceramics in blue, green, red and ochre. 
 
 George van der Wagt created a haut-relief (this is a relief in which the images emerge from the plane) in depths varying from 10 to 45 centimetres. The sculpture is located high on the facade (about 7 metres above the ground) and has an area of about 10 square metres. 
 
 George van der Wagt (1921-2007) was born in Rotterdam and was a pupil at the academy of visual arts there from 1943 to 1945. One of his teachers there was John Raedecker. Later, Van der Wagt assisted him with the realisation of the National Monument on Dam Square in Amsterdam. 

For the artwork KAPKAR, artist Frank Havermans was inspired by the various passers-by of this green spot on the Hoornsedijk. He wants to bring residents, but also the Pieterpad walkers and others who are passing by, to a standstill and make chance encounters possible.

Kasco is located in an artificial "swamp" that recalls the original wet peat meadow landscape. The intention was that the artwork would be slowly overgrown by advancing reed collars, alders and willows. However, the composition of the soil appears to be different than was thought at the time. As a result, no swamp vegetation has been able to develop and the artwork is still just as "tight" as in the beginning.

You can see the Gate Tower Clio from afar. The seven metal 'flames' on this electricity pole make up the cycle of the week. A flame is lit on the first day of the week and one is added every day. The flames symbolize the gas bottom treasure in Groningen.

The artwork was designed by Kurt W. Forster. It is one of the ten city markers placed around Groningen in 1990 under the direction of the well-known architect Daniel Libeskind.