Utrecht Marathon

Today was the tradi-tional Utrecht Marathon.

The run-ners pass here the buildings of the Utrecht Sterrewacht near the Singel.

The marathon was won by the Kenian William Kipchumba who left in an increasing temperature the other runners behind in a time of 2h09.41.

This meant a strong improvement of the old record on this (Utrecht) track

Utrecht Utrecht for Starters

On the warf of the Oude Gracht below nr. 36 you can read the poem called:
"Utrecht for starters".




It asks you, to learn to understand the city, by feeling it's history with your own hands.

Select a good evening,
walk along the channels and look
how the light in the houses disappears.
Put than your hand on a wall.
Here the eldest stone is right.

The poem is of the, in March 2009 appointed, first City Poet Ingmar Heytze. He also published a book, with the same title as the poem, in which he selected 125 poems about the city.
A city poet is appointed - by the local city government- for two years and receives € 5.000,- p/y.

Utrecht Feest der Muzen (Party of the Muses)

On the lawn (grasveld) in front of the Stads-schouwburg at Lepelenburg is a statue,
called Feest der Muzen (party of the three Muses).

The statue is made by Joop Hekman in 1959 so this year it is exactly 50 years old !

From April on, the fountain around the statue is working and during hot days I was always jealous seeing the ladies being splashed with cold fresh water in the shadow of the tree while I was dusty and sweating.

The three Muses are three out of nine muses (nine daughters of Zeus) of the Greek mythology.
They are called Thalia (muse of comedy), Melpomene (muse of tragedy) and Tersichore (muse of dance). So the place of the statue near the theatre is really well over thought.

Utrecht Maliehuis (Maliehouse)

At the beginning of the present Maliebaan is a house called the Maliehuis or Malie house.

It was built in 1636 as a club house for the players of the Malie play, a kind of hockey, and favourite by the students in those days. An other blogtopic will be dedicated to the play and history of the Maliebaan.

In the Maliehouse refreshments could be obtained.

In the 19th century the house was enlarged and used as a private house.

After a long time the house became in a bad condition by lack of occupancy .

In 1970 the house was completetly rebuilt in the inside and served then as a showroom for an exclusive furniture shop.

The exterieur was also re-established but alas without some striking (markant) details.

At this moment the SNS bank uses the building as mortgage (hypotheek) office.

On the first picture you see the maliehouse as a white building left from the Malie alley.

Utrecht Cityscapes

The shopping window of Catch (Domstraat 11-15) was dedicated to the artist Jurjen Bertens (1974) who makes a lot of city-scapes (stadsgezichten), especially of Utrecht.

He uses several techniques as digital adaptations and drawings. The use of fresh colours is remarkable since he is colour blind.

On the drawing in the backgroud the Grand Cafe Winkel van Sinkel and the buildings of the town all. In front the birthday agenda with Utrecht illustrations.

There are more artists who have Utrecht cityscapes as leading subject. They will be introduced in one of the following blogs.

Utrecht The City Wall 1

One of the privileges of the received City Rights in 1122 was that the city of Utrecht was allowed to strengthen itself against enemies from outside.

The defence has been erected in three ways, namely by:
1. duging a canal around the city (in Utrecht called the Singel or stadsbuitengracht- city outside canal)
2. erecting an earthen wall (dike)
3. building four gates and turrets (geschuttorens)

The city wall had a very strong foundation (fundament) up to three meters thick.
On this foundation a stone shield wall and a row of bows on pillars were erected.
A parapet (borstwering) and battlements (kantelen), from which arrows and later bullets could be fired, protected the marksmen (schutters) behind the shield wall.

The remains are nowadays integrated in the Zocher Garden near the Lucas Bolwerk (opposite the Stadsschouwburg- City Theatre).

The first picture shows the earthen wall and a watch tower. It seems that in winter the enemies have no difficulties to approach the wall by the frozen canal :).

The second picture shows the only visible remains of the Utrecht City Wall, namely the bows and a small part of the shield wall.

On the third picture you see too the remarkable combination of modern architecture and the medieval remains.

Utrecht Cultural Sunday 15 March

Utrecht started the Cultural Sundays (N/E) on the initiative of Groen Links (political – green- party).
The idea was to offer a counterbalance (tegenwicht) to the commercial shopping Sundays, to offer the Utrecht population on regular basis art and culture and to enliven (verlevendigen) the city centre.
If possible once a month there are cultural festivities in the city of different character.

This Sunday was more or less in the middle of the “Boekenweek” (Book week), in which the Dutch literature is highlighted. The theme of the Boekenweek 2009 was: “The literary Zoo”, which meant special attention to literature that refers to animals.

One of the many events was an interview at the town hall of the mayor Aleid Wolfsen with Dick Bruna, (N/E and more on the other mentioned sites)famous all over the world with his children’s books Nijntje, but for me more famous for the design of the many, many book covers of the Zwarte Beertjes pocket books. (here examples of his designs for the Simenon book covers)

Dick Bruna was an enthusiastic story-teller so the mayor had an easy task :).
Nevertheless he asked a lot of interesting questions about the way Dick Bruna started a book and what’s going on in his mind during the writing process.

Most of his ideas came up during his bicycle trips from home to his studio v.v. Dick Bruna said.
Then he sees a lot of inspiration for his books. (By the way, I often see him on his bike passing the street in which I live). He advised the audience at the end to use the bicycle as often as possible :).

He also talked about the Bruna Museum, his passion for perfection, the control on translations of his books, the efforts to make everythin as simple and clear as possible ("less is more") and many other points of interest.

At the end of the interview he answered questions from the audience- even in English with the same ease as in Dutch- and read one of his books: Vogel Piet (Bird Peter). After every page he showed the audience the drawing that belonged to it. It was a very pleasant morning.