Archives’ Anniversary project offers contrasting streetscapes

Photographic billboard exhibit

THE HAGUE - Nearly all residents in The Hague know by now that the city’s Municipal Archives are turning 125 this year. To mark this occasion, the city agency has put on an open-air exhibit of 75 strike billboards, displaying historical photographs at 64 locations throughout The Hague. Dubbed “Hague Billboards, history is on the street,” they measure either 2 by 2 metres or 3 by 3 metres.

The historic photos, which have been placed in all of the city’s neighbourhoods, have been located on the same spots where they once were taken. The objective is that passers-by will see how the cityscape now differs from the ‘good old days.’

Officials at The Hague Municipal Archives hope that the Billboard project will make people more conscious of the Archives and will encourage them to use its facilities.

Photographs of all the locations where the billboards have been placed can also be accessed and viewed on the website of the Municipal Archives. Visitors to the site are invited to add their own recollections and photos. A Dutch birthday without an appropriate calendar is incomplete, all the more reason for The Hague Municipal Archives to offer its own unique version for the public to purchase.

The Hague Billboards project will run until the end of July 2009.