Stadstekenaar: Grote Marktstraat

As Stadstekenaar of The Hague, Philip Akkerman paints a cityscape of all districts of The Hague.

For the subject of his first drawing as City Illustrator, Philip Akkerman chose the Grote Marktstraat. This wide shopping street runs like an artery through the city centre. Akkerman cycles through it almost daily and still remembers the time when cars and trams also passed along it. Earlier still, the centre of The Hague consisted of a maze of narrow streets, alleyways and small lanes. At the beginning of the twentieth century, that situation was no longer suitable for modern traffic, so the municipal authorities commissioned the architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage to design a plan for a new city centre. He conceived a broad avenue that would run from the Bezuidenhoutseweg, via the Fluwelen Burgwal and the Kalvermarkt, to the Grote Markt. That became the Grote Marktstraat: lined with large department stores, motor traffic, tram line 6 and pavements bustling with shoppers. Today, there are no longer any cars or trams to be found there. The street has become the city’s living room, with attractive benches and elegant street lighting.