219. The Crown Court by Domstad Rudie

About "219. The Crown Court"

by Domstad Rudie

About the artwork

"De Kroonhof" is a digital artwork that brings to life an intimate, almost forgotten part of Utrecht: a small courtyard in Wijk C, where judo legend Anton Geesink was born in 1934. The atmosphere exudes the style of George Hendrik Breitner - the image is imbued with a sombre, warm tonality, in which rough brick facades, shadowy corners and weathered doors light up in the soft, diffuse light. Children play in the streets, women hang laundry out of windows, and the smell of urban security is everywhere. The pavement is bumpy, the green of a few stray ivy plants fighting against the grey brickwork.

What is almost unfathomable: this scene is set in the 1950s. While the Netherlands modernises and rebuilds, De Kroonhof seems to stand still in time - a relic of a nineteenth-century working-class neighbourhood, where community and proximity are central. The image captures the atmosphere of a city about to lose its old neighbourhoods to the 1970s' ideal of progress. By 1970, De Kroonhof had disappeared, demolished as part of urban renewal.

The artwork is not just a nostalgic look back; it is also a subtle indictment of the disappearance of this human scale from the cityscape. In the dingy splendour of De Kroonhof, there is still the laughter of children, the knocking on doors, and the rhythm of a neighbourhood that once formed its own world - small, messy and lively.

Address: Wijk C, Utrecht

Digital artwork after a black-and-white photograph by L. H. Hofland

Completed on: 28 April 2025