77-metre-long artwork at tilburg station

Sometimes, as architects, an unexpected opportunity presents itself. We already considered the renovation of Tilburg railway station and the design of the new bus station to be compelling assignments. At a late stage, an additional and highly specific question emerged: how to securely and precisely mount an almost eighty-metre-long historic concrete mosaic onto the station wall. Last Friday, the artwork was officially unveiled.

concrete relief with shard mosaic
The work is officially titled ‘concrete relief with shard mosaic’. Artist Jan Dijker created it in 1967 for the façade of the former Katholieke Academie voor Lichamelijke Opvoeding (KALO) in Tilburg. It consisted of twelve concrete relief panels, combined with sgrafitto applied directly to the wall. When the school building was demolished in 2005, the sgrafitto disappeared along with the structure. The concrete panels, however, were preserved. They remained in municipal storage for fifteen years and were carefully restored once the new location was determined.

monument on monument
To mount the relief onto the station wall, a dedicated frame was required. cepezed was involved due to our in-depth knowledge of the site: we designed the renovation of the listed station and the adjacent bus station. “The railway station is a monument, but I consider the artwork a monument as well, particularly after studying Dijker’s work in more detail,” says architect Hans Cool, who designed the frame. “The key question was: how do you place a monument onto a monument?”

unveiling
Last Friday, Dijker’s artwork was unveiled at its new location. The historic concrete relief aligns with the character of the Tilburg station area, with its distinctive 1965 station building and industrial heritage. The work adds another layer to this already stratified context, where infrastructure, heritage and culture converge. For us, it feels like the final piece of the public transit hub we designed here, complete with a bus station, cycle sheds, a tunnel, a north entrance, an additional platform, and the renovated station and relay house.

Interested in the full scope of the project? The publication Bestemming bereikt (Final Destination) covers the restoration of the relief, the reconstruction of the sgrafitto and the precise installation process.