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Prior to the intervention. The mediocrity of the buildings around the square and the scant commercial activity at street level gave it the lacklustre appearance of an empty backyard.

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In 2004, with the aim of programmatically organising this space and reinforcing the definition of its physical limits, a non-profit-making private organisation suggested to the Council that a small pavilion-theatre could be inserted on the only non-built-up side of the square.

Bombing attacks in the Second World War destroyed almost all the buildings in the surrounds of Laurenskerk cathedral.

Longitudinal section and ground plan of the pavilion.

The curtain runs round both sides to form a closed classroom.

General plan of the pavilion’s location.

A seventy-metre-long sliding curtain hanging from the perimeter of the roof means that performances can be addressed to audiences on the square side or the canal side.

The pavilion constitutes a prismatic volume running parallel to the canal and closing off the western side of the square.

Post-war subsequent reconstruction of the city centre freed a vacant space between the main facade of the cathedral and the Delftsevaart canal.

Sketch of the positioning of the pavilion within the space of the square.

Thanks to the transparency of its structure and the mutability of its vertical closing by means of the sliding curtain, the pavilion can act as an opaque limit to reinforce the limit of the Grotekerkplein or become a threshold significantly connecting the square with the Delftsevaart canal.

The pavilion consists of two cubic nuclei resting on a podium and supporting a slab 50 cm thick and thirty metres long. The result is a great horizontal portico framing a stage that is open on both sides.

The pavilion equips the square with a new focus for events.