Obrechtstraat stopped dead at the Atlantic Wall

Designed as a residential area for the upper and middle classes, the development was spacious and frivolous in appearance – very different from the plainer housing areas built earlier. To ensure greater variety in the street frontages, there was even a competition for the best design for a house facade.

Obrechtstraat is one of the long, curving streets that surround Sweelinckplein (the heart of Duinoord). Originally, the street continued to a junction with today’s President Kennedylaan (then Stadhoudersplein).

In 1944 a section of Obrechtstraat was demolished to make way for the Atlantic Wall. Another section was evacuated and declared a no-go area. During the last, desperate winter of the war, all the wood in the empty houses was slowly but surely plundered for fuel and by the time of the liberation little but ruins remained.