From 1983 to 1985 a sixty-metre hoarding painted by Hugo Kaagman stood on Waterlooplein square. A new concert hall and city hall was being built behind the boards. This was a time of pessimism, economic crisis, unemployment and anxiety about nuclear war. Kaagman incorporated all this into his pictorial narrative. Many people added their own messages and signatures to the hoarding during the years it stood on Waterlooplein.