In 1998 Marjan Laaper was asked to make a permanent public artwork for the

elevator shafts in the City hall / The Stopera building in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

The location for the work was the wall of the elevator-shaft in the cellar and 1st

floor of the building. Marjan Laaper made two photographs, each measuring

600 x 160 cm. They were installed on the back wall of the elevator shaft.

Each photograph shows a germinating seed, one of an oak tree and the other,

a beech.  The windows of the elevators look out onto the walls of the lift shaft, and reveal different sections of the photos as they travel between floors.  From the

cellar-floor you can see the roots.  Although each tree grows differently, the shape

of the roots resemble the canals on the city-map of Amsterdam. As you move up

to the first floor the leaves come into view. They seem to be reaching up to the

light that comes into the lift shaft on higher floors.