This is the story of a house, erected in 1907 in an eye-catching mixture of two styles: Continental Art Nouveau and British Arts & Crafts. It stands proud as a peacock, plumed in yellow and small black stripes, on a small hill above one of the most handsome residential streets in the Belgian capital, the leafy Avenue Hamoir. For the past five years, this beauty was the home of American friends of mine, the Glazers--Barry and Deborah and their three children, Emilie, Benjamin, and Anya. But property developers recently bought the Glazers' house with the aim of tearing it down and building three apartment buildings.
The thought of such an architectural gem falling to the wrecking ball provoked a rare outcry in this calm neighborhood of prosperous professionals. The Glazers, who had rented the house, are being forced to leave. A group of residents, frightened by the prospect of 36 new apartments, all the new cars that would come with them, and the loss of a landmark, mobilized to stop the demolition. But even as hostilities were launched, they and the Glazers remained pessimistic about their chances of success. "The developers have all the powers in Belgium," Deborah despaired.
Unfortunately, she's right: The destruction of valuable architecture has become a sort of local specialty. War destroyed many European cities. But two German occupations last century didn't blemish Brussels, with its splendid medieval ramparts and its incomparable Art Nouveau treasures. Misguided urban renewal did.
SAD MISHMASH. A network of freeways was carved through the city in advance of the 1958 World's Fair. More development followed in the 1960s after the European Commission established its headquarters here. In order to house the Eurocrats, steel, glass, and concrete office buildings replaced an entire neighborhood of harmonious, mid-19th century neoclassical townhouses. The city's rich Art Nouveau heritage--local architect Victor Horta founded the movement--was ignored. In 1964, his masterpiece, the Maison du Peuple, was razed and replaced by a faceless building. A few years later, another Horta creation, a metal-and- glass-fronted department store called L'Innovation, burned in a suspicious fire.
A sad architectural mishmash resulted from this unholy combination of neglect, arson, and property speculation. Walk down almost any Brussels street, and you'll see nondescript modern office blocks squeezed next to medieval churches along with exquisite early 1900s masterpieces wedged between apartments thrown up in the '60s. There's even a name for the phenomenon: Bruxellisation. "It means ignoring your history and letting property developers take advantage of a weak political system," explains Raphael Rastelli, director of preservationist group Petitions-Patrimoine: Bruxellois Against Bruxellisation.
The country's convoluted political system is indeed largely responsible. When the Belgians formalized separate French-speaking and Flemish-speaking regions after World War II, they continued to fight over the capital's status, leaving it for years without an effective municipal government. Brussels itself is a French-speaking town surrounded by Flemish-speakers--unloved and underfunded by provincial Belgians. Rich private developers filled the vacuum, welcomed by the authorities as a way of easing the public-money crunch.
In contrast, both Paris and Amsterdam are generously financed capitals of centralized, strongly governed countries. The French and Dutch capitals impose strict zoning limiting the height of buildings. Brussels has no such limits. Amsterdam has about 8,000 official landmark buildings and monuments. Greater Brussels has only 427. In Brussels, the patrimony organization has a backlog of at least 5,000 buildings it wants protected.
Persuading Belgians to mobilize for grassroots political activity is difficult. Petitions-Patrimoine is a voluntary organization with only about 250 members. "People are very self-centered here," complains my friend Deborah.
Even before the apartment project was proposed, developers had laid siege to Deborah's leafy neighborhood. Between 1900 and 1930, a series of impressive single-family villas was built on the Avenue Hamoir, most of them for Belgium's aristocracy. But as the children of the counts and countesses grew up, many needed to raise money. They sold parcels of land and often even their homes to developers. Architect Marc Corbiau, who designed the proposed apartment complex, is already building four others on the street. "Little by little, the land is being gobbled up, and the neighborhood's character destroyed," complains Felicitas Sauerbrei-Donker, a longtime neighborhood resident.
She and other local residents organized a petition with 90 names to oppose the destruction of the Glazers' home. It was designed by Jean-Baptiste Dewin, a disciple of Horta who took Art Nouveau and began moving toward the more subdued, geometric Art Deco. In the 1980s, developers knocked down another Dewin masterpiece, an Art Deco printing plant for the newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws. Where the Glazers' house stands, developers proposed three glass-and-steel buildings, plus an underground parking lot with up to 200 spaces.
Approval from the local zoning commission was all they needed to proceed. A public hearing was scheduled on a chilly early summer morning in the commission's gray, concrete headquarters on the Rue Alsemberg. Architect Corbiau, one of Belgium's best-known builders with a reputation for clean, modern design, dramatically unfolded the drawings. They showed three all-white buildings, each a harmonious collection of rectangles, with large bay windows and steel balconies. His conclusion was simple: "We must live in our times."
The comment enraged the small audience of residents. "Why do we always have to destroy old things?" complained protester Corinne Goldschmidt. Others emphasized how the new project would increase the traffic in the neighborhood. "We'll become like a giant parking lot," said Eric de Beco. Others worried about setting a dangerous precedent. "Mr. Corbiau is a talented architect, but what about the next architect who isn't so talented and wants to knock down an old villa?" asked Sauerbrei-Donker.
DOOMED GARDEN. After about an hour of increasingly vociferous arguments, city councillor and zoning official Chantal de Lavelaye called the confrontation to a halt. "I'll discuss this problem and issue a decision the next day," she announced. The architect and protesters confronted each other again outside in the hallway. "Until a few weeks ago, no one even mentioned this house as beautiful," Corbiau complained. But the protesters left with a glimmer of hope. In recent years, Brussels residents have begun electing their own local politicians for the first time. "Madame de Lavelaye might be frightened of angering voters," said Alicia Jardin, one of the local residents.
In the end, she was right: The city councillor blocked the demolition. But the residents' victory was only partial. The developers received permission to construct the parking lot and at least two apartment buildings in the garden. Worse, the reprieve came too late for the Glazers. At the end of August, the Glazers moved to their new home, in London. "The battle for the house was the last straw forcing us to leave," Deborah says, explaining that there were other factors, too, that prompted the move. Unfortunately, Brussels remains a graveyard for historic architecture. But at least the battle for my friend's house shows that my adopted city is beginning--slowly, hesitantly and incompletely--to change.
Echikson has reported from Brussels for six years and is now leaving BusinessWeek to write a book on the Bordeaux wine trade.
Edited by Tim Belknap
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