The official unveiling is on Saturday 16 September, but Leiden residents who want to take a look can already admire the ‘Rob Schilperoort memorial’ on the Wassenaarseweg. The artwork, which takes the form of a ‘portal’ in which the logo of the Leiden Bio Science Park is incorporated, stands at the entrance of a park that has already been named after the initiator of the business park.
The companies at the Leiden Bio Science Park now focus mainly on (bio)pharmaceuticals, but in the early nineties it was not clear that things would go in that direction. Leiden Professor of Molecular Biology Rob Schilperoort (1938-2012) was more interested in the possibilities of plant breeding. He had hoped for the arrival of ‘green’ biotech in Leiden, but he did not get public opinion in the Netherlands and the European Union on board.
Even when he retired as professor in 2000, Schilperoort could get angry when genetically modified soy, rice and tomatoes were labeled as ‘Frankenstein food’. “The only way to quickly do something about hunger is to develop crops that have a high yield and do not need to be sprayed because they are insensitive to diseases,” he said at the time in the Leidsch Dagblad. Leiden eventually lost its research into genetic modification of food crops to the ‘Food Valley’ of Wageningen University.
Annoyed to death
Schilperoort has been recognized from the outset as one of the founders of the Bio Science Park. He always defended his vision fiercely, did his utmost to prevent other industries from establishing themselves in the area and he hated it when that failed. “I was annoyed to death by that money-consuming structure of the Rijnland Water Board,” he said at his farewell. In 2009, Leiden University asked architectural firm Studio Hartzema to design a park that would bear his name on the site of the Clusius Laboratory.
Outside circles of the municipality and Leiden University, few knew about the role that Schilperoort played as the driving force behind the Bio Science Park. It was only after city historian Cor Smit published the book ‘BioPartner. Starter motor and lubricating oil of the Bio Science Park’, his significance for the city became widely known.
Meditation
This now results in a tribute in the form of a gate. Studio Hartzema in Rotterdam designed a work of art in two parts, which are intended to depict ‘the meeting of entrepreneurship and science’. On the south side, a concrete bench has been made, which should invite contemplation. That is, writes architect Henk Hartzema, ‘a tribute to the man Rob Schilperoort, who loved to sit on a bench and look around and – for example with his daughter – go through the world for a while’.
The Schilperoort Park, to which the portal gives access, is a green high-rise district. Former pavilions of the AZL have been converted into apartments and two residential towers have been added, such as luxury student housing under the name ‘Clusius’. Vegetarian restaurant Lab071 has also been given a place there. The park forms a unity with the buildings of the University of Applied Sciences Leiden and the student flats De Zwarte Dozen of student housing provider Duwo.
Wilfred Simons, Leidsch Dagblad, 1 September 2023
