Rapid progress towards completion of the Brittenpassage

In September 2025, we already visited the site with our photographer and last February, you were even able to see the outlines of the new Brittenpassage with your own eyes. Now that the opening is fast approaching, the passageway is developing more and more: a shopfront here, an escalator there. Project coordinator/site engineer Wim Koning of construction consortium Nieuw Zuid (Boskalis, Mobilis and Van Gelder) has done this kind of work before, but still looks around in amazement: ‘What you see here brings together some 60 different disciplines.’

Koning and his colleague Amine Talhaoui, a civil engineering student and intern, guide us into the passageway from the Eduard van Beinumstraat on the north side. Through the former Atrium car park, as Koning explains: ‘The car park was one of the first structures in the station area. We are now converting it into a temporary entrance to the Brittenpassage, with space on both sides for storage, technical facilities and staff areas.’ A temporary entrance? Koning taps the ground with his shoe: ‘Only until the A10 Zuid runs underground in a tunnel. We can then build the permanent entrance and on the site of the old car park we will create retail units, all the way to the Minervapassage, some 200 metres further on.’

There is good news for cyclists: the Brittenpassage will include a large bicycle parking facility for 2,000 bikes, with direct access to both the Eduard van Beinumstraat/Parnassusweg and the passageway. Escalators will also return (see box below). In the final weekend of February, two new escalators were installed at the train platforms – those for the metro platforms will follow in early April. A remarkable operation: each escalator was transported horizontally into the passageway, and then manoeuvred into place from the platform above in two separate sections. Using a click-and-slide system, the sections were then seamlessly joined together.

Once inside the passageway, we encounter large scaffolding structures, moving equipment and busy construction workers. ‘Last September, the concrete construction near the train tracks on the other side of the passageway had already been completed’, says Koning, ‘but on this side beneath the metro tracks we were still at crawl-space level. Since then, the floors have been poured and finished, and there’, Koning gestures towards the sides of the passageway, ‘we are preparing the shopfronts. The glass sliding doors will be installed later.’

At the staircase to the metro platform, we look up to where the passageway is covered by a steel framework currently covered with foil. ‘We will soon replace the foil with curved glass, allowing daylight to flood into the passageway’, explains Koning. ‘There is space for this above the metro platforms, but not above the train tracks, as the platform extends over the passageway. Installation of the glass must wait until temperatures reach 15 degrees Celsius, otherwise the glass may crack during installation.’

Above, between the existing Minervapassage and the new Brittenpassage, the new metro platforms are taking shape. The southern metro platform already has its canopy, and the adjacent platform will follow soon. Koning: ‘The train platforms were completed earlier. They have now also been extended over the Brittenpassage, allowing trains to stop closer to the Parnassusweg. This creates space to demolish the old platform canopies and tracks near the Minervapassage, while passengers can continue to use the trains slightly further along.’