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| The Jules Fonteyne plaque. |
Obviously,
walking each morning has meant that I, a most unobservant person,
have noticed a number of things, features, plaques or just plain
sights, around Brugge unnoticed previously. The back courtyard on a
little hotel, insistently light-filled in these less than
light-filled days! This morning along the Coupure, a little plaque on
a house to Jules Fonteyne, 1876-1964, attesting to the fact that he
had lived there. I must try to discover something more about Jules if
he is worthy of a special plaque!
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Modern, back extension to the
Grand Hotel Casselbergh. |
Last
week, three friends and I, the same three from previous weeks, all
masked and distanced of course, went on a mini-architectural walk,
led by the expertise of Leen! We looked at the very modern rear elevation of
the Grand Hotel, Casselbergh on Hoogstraat, as seen from across the
canal, from Steenhouwersdijk. The back extension is strangely pleasing, in modern
style though set within a mediaeval landscape. The
architects conceived of it as a bronze treasure chest, in the
architectural shape of a box with a chamfered roof echoing the design
of the Belfort which also used to hold the treasury of Brugge. The
idea of the treasure chest is underlined by the bronze projecting window frames
which represent the gems. Frankly, I had admired this splendid back
view of the hotel many times knowing nothing of the architect’s
intellectual design process which really helps me to understand the
design concept which, in turn, helps to account for the harmony of the
modern within the mediaeval panorama.
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| Roger Raveel swans in removal, 1971. |
En
route to the Rijksarchief, we passed the spot on the Groenerei
associated with Roger Raveel, an artist with an interesting history!
Born in 1921, he was eventually knighted by the King. His versatility
was legendary; he practised as a painter and sculptor, potter and
designer of flags and for the Triennale in 1971, he made four wooden
swans and placed them in the Groenerei as a protest against the dirty
state of the canals. The council removed them and returned them to
the artist who promptly replaced them on the water. After this cycle
was repeated several times, the canals, then in a particularly filthy
state, were quietly cleaned. In his paintings, he often incorporated actual
objects like mirrors and reputedly, once, a cage containing a living
pigeon. One of the gifted eccentrics of Bruges, he died in 2013.
We
progressed to the Rijksarchief on the Predikherenrei, again, a modern
building [2012] of most harmonious design, often admired by
me-as-casual-passerby! The principal structure is made from long,
thin bricks called Wienerbergers [from Vienna] which give a strong
layered effect meant to suggest crumpled paper, and the stones
incorporated are a reference to the piles of documents within the
building. There are no windows above but the ground floor is walled
in glass both to let in light but chiefly to invite connection with
the outside world. To the left of the facade can be seen a succession
of slanting roofs meant to give an architectural connection to the
neighbourhood.
And
finally, to see the wooden man who had long perplexed me. Situated
adjacent to the pedestrian bridge on the Kazernevest, in a glass and
blue stone tank, lies the wooden figure of a recumbent man,
face-down. At an unseen signal [from a ‘key’, a movement
detector, in a tree nearby] the prone figure slowly rises to the top
of the tank, remains briefly before descending to its former resting
place, every fifteen minutes. The timing of this choreography
corresponds exactly to the time taken to raise up from, and return
the bridge to, its original position. The bridge itself is made of
blue stone and oak, similar to the materials used to fashion the man
and his tank. The blue stone is from a quarry in Henegouwen, a
Walloon province. To further form a unity between oak articulated
model and bridge, the figure has twenty flexible segments designed to
echo the movement of the nearby water. Significantly, it was a
choreographer, Ugo Dehaes, who designed this unusual and fascinating tribute, named
Coupure, in 2002 when Brugge was European Capital of Culture.
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| Coupure descending ..... |
