The Flickr Virgin Image Generatr

Virgin Atlantic Airways
G-VYUM
Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner
Heathrow Airport
London
19th March 2025

Originally, this lady sat at the top of the stairs at the entrance to the former city hall on Burgemeester De Monchyplein. With her left hand leaning on the city arms, she represents the City Virgin, a personification of The Hague.

At the end of the 1920s, the old town hall at Groenmarkt turned out to have become too small. In 1935, following a design competition, the plan for a new town hall by architect J.M. Luthmann (1890-1973) was selected. Three years later, the office part of the new building was completed. It was not until 1953 that he was able to complete the representative part of the town hall. Luthmann proposed to commission several sculptors from The Hague to decorate his town hall.

The invited sculptors Dirk Bus, Bram Roth and Gerard van Remmen mainly applied reliefs to the Town Hall. After the demolition of the 'new' town hall in 1996, most of them were preserved and reinstalled in the inner garden of the flat and office complex that arose on the site of the town hall. Only the sculpture of the City Virgin by Bram Roth was given a different purpose. She finally found a new home on the Sweelinckplein in 2009. At the intersection of Banstraat and Eerste Sweelinckstraat a pedestal had stood empty for years. Previously there had been a drinking bowl for birds. The Friends of Sweelinck Square Foundation made sure that the City Virgin got that spot.

Sunset routing Atlanta-Heathrow