The Beech at the Pier Pander Temple

There is a small classical temple in this park, built in 1924 to hold the work of one sculptor. Pier Pander was born in Friesland in 1864, the son of a rag merchant, and got out through talent and patronage: Rome, a career in marble, and an early death in 1919. The temple was raised to his own plans five years later, a domed round building in a public park, to house his sculpture. There are not many Dutch artists with a temple. The beech stands beside it. Its date is not certain: the register bands it 1840 to 1850 and notes that trees here could equally have gone in when the temple was built, but photographs from the 1930s argue for the earlier reading. This is the Noorderplantage, laid out in 1843 on the former Noorderdwinger bastion and joined to the Prinsentuin at its eastern end, and the register's general conclusion is that the oldest trees in it date from between 1830 and 1880. A beech beside a domed white building is a deliberate effect: smooth grey bark against smooth stone, and in summer a canopy dense enough to put the whole temple in shade.