1990: Operations Begin for an Antwerp Premetro Station Bearing the Name of a Renowned Writer and Psychiatrist

September 21, 1990

In the Belgian city and municipality of Antwerp, a newly built underground station first went into operation. Van Eeden station is in Antwerp’s suburb of Linkeroever on the left bank of the river Scheldt. (“Linkeroever” is the Dutch phrase for “left bank.”) The station is part of the Antwerp premetro, which encompasses eight of the lines of the Antwerp Tram network. A premetro is a type of light rail system designed for possible conversion to a full-fledged rapid transit service at a later point in time.

Van Eeden station owes its name to F. Van Eedenplein, a public square that is located directly above that transit facility. That square, in turn, was named after the prominent Dutch writer and psychiatrist Frederik van Eeden (1860-1932). Since Antwerp is within a Dutch-speaking region of Belgium, the government of that city and municipality arranged to have major streets and squares in Linkeroever named in memory of renowned Dutch-language literary figures.

One of the key features of Van Eeden station is a large wall relief made of terracotta and on display in the building’s main entrance hall. This artwork is titled Stad, Stroo men Metro (Dutch for “City, River and Metro”) and was created by May Claerhout (1939-2016).

Van Eeden station is served by routes 3,5, 9, and 15 or the Antwerp Tram network. The Antwerp premetro currently has a dozen stations in use. (The accompanying photo of Van Eeden station was taken in 2016.)

Photo Credit: Nenea hartia (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)

For more information on Van Eeden station, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eeden_(Antwerp_premetro_station)