Triennale and Autoze Zondag 2018

The Minne Floating School

Just two days after the Triennale has officially finished, already some exhibits are being de-constructed. I am hoping that the Blue Whale continues to leap a little longer but the structure on the Burg was under attack before 8.00 this morning and I see that the external wooden staircase to the Urb Egg Cafe in the garden of the Poortersloge has already gone. Sometimes, the Powers-That-Be in Brugge get it wrong [witness the expensive facelift to ‘t Zand which looks like a big empty space without the statuesque fountain] but one has to admit that the organisation of various aspects of civic life are eye-wateringly efficient here!

Brugge Grote Markt Cultuurmarkt

Sunday 16^th September saw not only the wonderful Autoloze Zondag with its many, many external features; dancing for older people in front of the Stadschouwburg; Rommelmarkten in Hoogstraat and Langestraat; over 20 stallholders in the Cultuurmarkt representing many local groups and activities, including for children, in the Markt and in Sint Jakobstraat; mobility and traffic safety in the Burg; a dance work-out in the morning on ‘t Zand and a closing concert there at 16.30. And all beneath a cloudless sky and accommodating a veritable army of tourists in addition to enthusiastic locals.

Sunday evening, Kunle Adeyemi, a Nigerian architect responsible for the splendid Floating School at the Minnewater, gave a talk in the Concertgebouw in English. I was impressed that the large Flemish audience turned up for a lecture in English and even more impressed with the quality of what Meneer Adeyemi had to say! The Minnewater version of the Floating School was Mark 3; the first grew out of a response to the ramshackle overcrowded settlement living on a large expanse of water in Makoko, Senegal when space inland was scarce and expensive. The architect’s team had listened to many of the settlers, desperately poor but resourceful people, and in response to their comments about life on water, arrived at the first Floating School solution. Basically Mr Adeyemi is trying to provide ideas to accommodate a population explosion with a significant proportion of large towns and cities situated near water, chiefly coastline. His statistics were frightening; in Africa, 70% of large towns and cities are near water and 70% of these need only a small increase in sea levels to be submerged. He is especially interested in the impact of climate change and on the possibilities of living on water to cope with the varying demands of that climate change.

The original Floating School in Makoko,

used for many purposes like a daily market.