Adam
Adam stands on Grote Kerkplein in Zwolle, a bronze figure by Auguste Rodin among the city’s public artworks. Its lowered pedestal places the figure close to passing people.
Rodin designed the figure in the early 1880s for the planned Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, drawing on Dante’s Divine Comedy. The fourth bronze casting dates from 1964. Its pose draws on Michelangelo’s Adam in the Sistine Chapel and Christ in the Pietà, connecting it to Rodin’s Gates of Hell. Dante’s Inferno supplied that project’s vision of chaos, pain, and despair.
The province of Overijssel ordered Adam in February 1964 and presented it as a gift before its Zwolle installation. Zwolle moved Adam from the Grote Markt to Grote Kerkplein in 1979, following Rodin’s wish to place the figure among people. In 2006, Arnoud Holleman added a plaque marked “call me”, which leads to a monologue spoken by actor Jeroen Willems. A 2009 restoration began the statue’s regular maintenance.
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Spots like this one are the stops myTuur strings into tours through Zwolle. In the app, each story begins where you stand: walk up to a spot and it starts, read it on screen or listen as you go, then follow the route to the next one.
What is myTuur?
myTuur is a free city-guide app. Its tours are built from spots, and each spot carries a story that starts when you get there, to read or to listen to as you like.