Lost and found

2016

The Baron van Wassenaerpark, located along the A12, is named after the owner of this land before the Second World War. When the Germans built the A12 highroad straight through his gardens, the Baron decided to hand over the part on this side of the highway to the local community, on the condition that the land would forever accommodate care facilities. Shortly afterwards, the regional hospital was built there and later other healthcare facilities. In this way, this former part of the estate has been transformed from a historical landscape garden into an area full of healthcare-architecture.

To make the connection with the estate visible again, I researched the estate, where I came across an old photograph of a chapel-like folly. This folly was on the estate on the other side of the highway and disappeared around 1900. I found remnants of the roof and bricks where it must have been. This find was the reason to have the disappeared chapel-folly on the other side of the highway, in the Baron van Wassenaerpark, resurface in a new shape that is inspired by the original form. I placed the folly in a spot where one of the oak trees, which belonged to the plantation at the hospital, had disappeared. These oaks belong to a species that turns completely red in autumn.

The accompanying walking route, which was distributed among local residents, follows a route that could have taken the folly from the old to the new location and passes places that bear stories about the estate.