The Foundation Atelier HSL was established in 2000, to highlight the cultural significance of the creation of the HSL South while this new rail line was being built. The Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment (Project Organisation HSL-South) did this in order to help refocus the political and social debate provoked by the construction of the line and foster a discussion of the overlooked significance of the new rail line not only on a rational basis, but also through art and cultural projects. A co-initiator of the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, was SKOR (Foundation for Art and Public Space). At the request of the initiators, Mark Kremer and Michiel Schwartz wrote the publication Scenario Atelier HSL, contouren voor een kunst-en cultuurprogramma rond de hogesnelheidslijn. This document was the basis for the organisation of Atelier HSL.

Atelier HSL is a unique initiative. Not only was the HSL South itself the result of a public-private partnership (PPP), but so was Atelier HSL. It is true that Atelier HSL was set up with concept of the ‘percentage rule’ for art expenditures for government-sponsored building projects in mind, but it does not fall under it. The budget for Atelier HSL is therefore much more limited than if the percentage rule would have been applied. From its inception Atelier HSL was financed and actively supported by Infraspeed, the consortium that was responsible for the superstructure of the line. This supporting role was already conceptualised during the tendering process, in which bidders were asked what role art and culture played for them and how they would concretely work out this role in relation to the HSL South.

With the establishment of Atelier HSL it is the first time that the Dutch tradition of linking art commissions with public buildings such as schools, hospitals, prisons, government office buildings, etc. was applied to a large-scale infrastructural project – the High Speed Line and everything connected with it: the route, the landscape, the trains and the stations. It is a project with a strong international component. Through Atelier HSL, The Netherlands is not only connected to the network of European high-speed trains, but also to an international network of art and culture.