Cow Tunnel in Wierden Still Free of Graffiti
Two and a half years after the opening of the Van Kregtentunnel I went back to Wierden to take a look at the project. The tunnel was still in good shape; projects like this usually get covered with tags, pieces and other graffiti fairly quickly after opening. But in this case there’s no trace of that.
Respect
It could be that the municipality of Wierden has a very strict cleaning policy. But it’s more likely that the graffitists have respect for the work of another artist.
Master of the Beasts
That other artist is obviously Fedor van Kregten (1871-1937), painter of the Hague School, who lived much of his life in the hamlet of Notter, near Wierden. That is where his style of painting developed, with subjects like willows, windmills, sheep and especially cows, which earned him the nickname “Master of the Beasts”.
30.000 tiles
When I was employed at Royal HaskoningDHV, I was involved in the design of the tunnel, together with my colleague Mari Baauw. I had the nice job to “translate” two paintings by Fedor van Kregten into a wall decoration of 30,000 tiles (and I also had the time consuming task to create a working drawing for all those tiles).
Compliments
Bravo to ProRail (responsible for the Dutch railway infrastructure) and to the municipality of Wierden, who chose to make the tunnel more than the cheapest possible concrete trough. And now that I am giving compliments: also the landscaping, with gabions and a lot of greenery, looks quite good:
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