The Rode Olifant in Reclaimed Wood
For our new office at Tripolis-Park, artist Diederick Kraaijeveld has created an impressive elephant (275 cm high, 190 cm wide) from reclaimed wood. The artwork was installed on the ground floor by the coffee bar, before the opening of our new building, a place accessible to every office guest.
The elephant is a longstanding emblem for the firm, originating from the time when De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek was located in a historical monument in The Hague called The Rode Olifant. This Art Deco building was originally built in 1924 for The American Petroleum Company (later Esso).
Kraaijeveld's work centres on reclaimed wood, which he personally seeks and finds in demolished buildings, construction containers, and along (distant) shores. He always uses the original (often painted) colour of the reclaimed wood. He himself does not add any paint. For our elephant, the artist used old wood from his own extensive stock, but he also incorporated left-over planks from the renovation of our new complex, Tripolis-Park.
Kraaijeveld's work is found in private and corporate collections worldwide. His portrait of King Willem Alexander hangs in the Museum Paleis Het Loo, and his portrait of President Barack Obama is part of the permanent collection of the Presidential Library and Museum in Chicago (opening in October 2025). Twice, Kraaijeveld's reclaimed wood portrait was chosen by Wendy van Dijk en Hanneke Groenteman in the Dutch tv show - Sterren op het doek (Stars on Canvas).
Kraaijeveld works out of a large warehouse on a former Cold War era military terrain on the outskirts of Hilversum.
See the making of here: https://vimeo.c...21ac?share=copy
