De Oude Weg Naar De Nieuwe Tijd

Martijn Sandberg has created an integrated artwork for the gateways and the floor of the new building project ‘Spaarndammerhart’ in the Spaarndammer district, Amsterdam. The artwork is an integral part of the building complex by Korth Tielens Architecten, Marcel Lok Architect MLA, and DS Landschapsarchitecten. The house numbers are also by Martijn Sandberg and function as a sculptural element on both opposing street facades of the complex and the inner courtyard.
The site-specific art by Martijn Sandberg is executed as a brick relief in the masonry of the three archways and within paving stones upon the floor to the interior courtyard.

While walking through the archways over the paving ‘De Oude Weg Naar De Nieuwe Tijd’ *), a figuration appears before our eyes – as if in a vision.
In the constantly changing play of light and shadow, brick letters become visible upon the wall and the curved ceiling.
It is a figuration deploying four letters and four numbers, in each passageway with a different numerical combination, providing us with the entrance code for a journey through time: ‘Anno 2020’, ‘Anno 1917’, ‘Anno 3025’.
Through the gates and into the courtyard, step by step, letter by letter we enter: ‘The Old Path To The New Time, The New Path To The Old Time’.

*) ‘The Old Path To The New Time’

‘’The design of the Spaarndammerhart building has three ports. In these gates I wanted to let bricks – the ‘pixel’ of the special architectural style of the Amsterdamse School – speak, in a sentence that can be read from left to right and from right to left. And which, just like a gate, has no beginning or end, because it depends on which side of the gate you stand.
In every gate I have captured the time with the word ‘anno’. What happens if you write ‘anno 1917’ on a new building?, I wondered. Or ‘3025’? A year so far in the future causes a clash of the imagination, while ‘2020’ generates an awareness of the present.’’ MS

Click here to see a description in English, as pdf.
Click here to see a description in Dutch, as pdf.

More info: Concept text (Dutch / English) by Martijn Sandberg, tender phase, August 2016, as pdf.

Click here for more images and a selection of concept drawings of the artwork, in the section ‘concepts & projects’.

Title: ‘De Oude Weg Naar De Nieuwe Tijd’
Artist: Martijn Sandberg
Location: Krommeniestraat, Amsterdam
Concept and figuration: 2016
Realisation: 2019-2020
Completion: 2021
Project assistance art: Atelier Rinzema
Architects: Korth Tielens Architecten, Marcel Lok Architect
Landscape architect: DS landschapsarchitecten
Project development: Heijmans Vastgoed

Photos by: Peter Cuypers