Cyclists who have had to take detours for months can now relax: the Hambrug bridge is open again. The bridge is an important connection point between TU Delft and the city centre. Not only did it get a big overhaul, but it also got a special piece of art.
Underneath the Ham bridge features TU library employee Vincent Cellucci's poem One Puddle. (Photo: Thijs van Reeuwijk)
The underside of the bridge now boasts a poem by TU Delft staff member and poet Vincent Cellucci. The idea of the ‘poem bridge’ came from Cellucci himself. He got the idea from the Parkhavenbrug bridge in Rotterdam.
“I was waiting for the bridge to open and was amazed to see a poem on the bottom of the bridge. It’s fantastic that you can come across poetry on the street in the Netherlands,” says the American. “My first thought was that we should do this is Delft too. The Hambrug bridge, which is close to my home, seemed the perfect place. I thought about a poem that would fit this spot well and then realised that one of my own poems would do.”
A happy coincidence
Cellucci contacted Monice Janson, the designer of the bridge poem in Rotterdam, and got to work with TU Delft art conservator Kornelis Fragakis. They worked out an idea for the poem bridge and presented it to the municipality of Delft. “We spoke to the municipality in November, and then learned that the bridge would be closed at the beginning of 2025 for a major overhaul. A happy coincidence and the perfect time to move forward.”
Art in public spaces in Delft
The municipality was very keen and welcomed Cellucci’s plan. Maurice Simons, in his role as the Civil Asset Manager at the municipality of Delft, led the project. “We want to make the public space in Delft as beautiful as we can where we can. A poem on the underside of a bridge fits this perfectly. The suggested poem also fits this perfectly and is accessible.”
Cellucci wrote the poem, called One puddle, shortly after coming to live in Delft in 2018. He was fascinated by cyclists who had to slow down or lift their legs just before cycling over the bridge because of the deep puddle of water there. The scene inspired him to write his very first poem about Delft. He wrote it in English but, thinking about the location on the bridge, asked a colleague to translate it into Dutch.
‘With a few Dutch words mixed in, the poem acts as a bridge between two languages’
In the end, it was the English version that was chosen. “It is the language in which the poem was originally written and the city of Delft has a lot of international students and expats. With a few Dutch words mixed in, the poem acts as a bridge between two languages.”
Cellucci is happy with the result. “It was a good partnership between the municipality and TU Delft. If the poem fades or disappears in a decade or so, I hope that a new one will be chosen.”
Major maintenance work
The Hambrug bridge was closed for major maintenance and a technical upgrade. The bridge’s control system and software were replaced, it got a new surface course, the road surface markings were redone, and the footpath strengthened. The pavements around the bridge were replaced so that big puddles, as in Cellucci’s poem, should be a thing of the past.
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