The Willemsplein Plane

Arnhem is redesigning its busiest square around this tree rather than the other way round. The plan for Willemsplein, due between 2027 and 2029, runs a boardwalk winding between the existing monumental planes so they stay exactly where they are. That is a late reprieve, because the square has not been kind to it. The national monumental tree register dates the planting to somewhere between 1880 and 1890, which puts the tree at roughly 140 years old, and it spent most of those years on the hinge between the railway station, the city centre and the gates of Sonsbeek park. Decades of building work above and below ground wore it down. The soil had to be dug out and enriched, and the tree now drinks through a semi-automatic watering system, which is not standard equipment for a plane. Its history is legible if you look up. About five metres above the pavement there is a large opening into a sizeable cavity, bracket fungi sit in the crown, and steel cables run through the upper limbs as a precaution. The register still calls its condition reasonable to good, which for a city-centre tree that has survived this much counts as a decent grade. The broad crown is the one thing on Willemsplein that has not been rebuilt twice.