The Dead Tree Forest (Dwarse Bomenbos)

The Dead Tree Forest (Dwarse Bomenbos)

There is a section of meadow 250 metres long and 25 metres wide alongside a dike and a main road, bordering the agrarian landscape of Ooijpolder and a wood of poplars. It forms in fact the edge to the cycle path. This was once the site of a small village and heavy fighting took place here during World War II. It is a place to stand and contemplate, allowing the landscape to work its effect on you and then to continue on your own path; it is more of a visual location than a place to stay. The suggestion was to create a concentrated spot that would appeal to the imagination. The solitary tree of the small wood typifies the empty agrarian landscape. The adjoining woods would be continued in the meadow so as to create a sense of unity, but also of contrast. Dead trees would be planted in the meadow, acquiring a second life as ‘standing wood’. They would be part of a habitat of dead wood, a whole wood made up of sculptures in the polder. Dead trees often take on very beautiful shapes as they lose their bark and branches in the process of decay. These trees stand in the meadow like an eccentric tree formation, echoing the fringe of the forest.