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Brussels and 'Ground Euro', a theatre in regress
Mix Europe's inability to respond effectively to complex situations and Belgium's inimitable bureaucracy, situate the resulting mixture in Brussels - one of the most schizophrenic cities in Europe, and one where urban destruction in more the rule than the exception - and then try to create a headquarters here for the European Union. Bert Muynck explains what you end up with.
Anyone who has been following Belgian ambitions for the European Capital for the past two years must be completely bewildered by now. Under the leadership of Federal Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, Brussels was to embark on a new urban-design venture. Towering ambitions and blinding promises were piled high to create a political and urban structure without precedent in Belgium. Past errors would be made good, backroom architecture forgotten, and two contested areas turned into emblems of a new political culture in Brussels. One the one hand the European Quarter - let's call it 'Ground Euro' - would be tackled by a phalanx of European intellectuals, on the other the property boom on the Thurn & Taxis site would be kept within acceptable social levels. And what is the balance after two years? To explain the entire recent malaise surrounding 'Ground Euro' would take me too far here. For that I refer readers to my analysis in the next Archis (2003-1), on the basis of which the Vai (Flemish Architecture Institute) is planning a debate, sometime in February, on the European Quarter. In short, after analysing 'Ground Euro', an ambitious think-tank (Koolhaas, Eco et al.) came to the following conclusion: the European Union deserves a capital with an architecture and urban design capable of communicating with its citizens; the area needs to be coherently reconsidered in terms of both buildings and infrastructure; and after years of political terror the inhabitants of Brussels had to be released from their paranoia. No problem, the Prime Minister assured us, and he promptly promised international competitions, transparent structures, openness and multi-functionality for the area. A few months down the road and the outcome is bewildering: no results, top bureaucrats who consider missing signatures a lack of vision, compromises, and last but not least the sale of land on 'Ground Euro' to the chief contractor, turning the 'global concept study for the Quarter' into a Fata Morgana. Rarely has 'transparent structures' been a more apt term to describe the reigning façadism of the city's politics of urban design.
As if the above ambition wasn't enough, another area was to be tackled at the same time. Thurn & Taxis, located along the canal zone in Brussels, had for a long time been tipped as the site for future top-level European meetings. It was supposed to be 'one of the largest and most innovative projects in the history of Brussels'. On Tuesday January 21, 2002, HOK presented its 'design' for the master plan. Words like superficial, corporate, uninspiring, vague, one-dimensional, ill considered and boring only hint at the nasty feeling left by the presentation. The rigid separation of housing, work, leisure and obligatory greenery reveals nothing of the multi-functionality promised by the developers. Even more disappointing was the advice to the public not to view the water-colour impression as a 'design' but rather as a means of communicating the proposed zoning. No doubt we should probably view the urban designers at HOK as 'feel-good' urban impressionists too.
In the project for Thurn & Taxis the relevant authorities could act in a managing capacity only. So they can therefore be accused only of lacking vision, incapable of realising ambitions, and refraining from active engagement in the development process. The conclusion for 'Ground Euro' reads otherwise, however. For the authorities acted an initiator (witness their involvement in the think-tank), as client (witness the abandoned ambition for an international competition) and finally as owner (witness the dubious sale of land). The conclusion is all too clear: the Belgian authorities are failing to translate expectations into suitable operational mechanisms. This becomes especially painful when we see the same thing happening at 'Ground Euro', an area that needs nothing less than an international character. If we consider the attention generated world-wide by the designs for 'Ground Euro', the attitudes they adopt towards a precarious urban area, and the efforts made to communicate them, only one question remains. How is it possible that the ambitions for 'Ground Euro', and the European Capital in general, cannot do justice to such proposals? If the current plans for 'Ground Euro' - involving four offices, a European Congress Centre and division of responsibilities - continue along the same road, then the area will undoubtedly acquire a disastrous identity and display a degrading and lamentable vision. The European District must testify to an identity and quality of life and, for all the world leaders who'll come there, become an 'Esposizione Universale' for political decisions, communication, character, quality and humanity. This can only be achieved if policy is reversed and a fresh start on this important project is made - thought through, well founded and put together in a comprehensive manner. The question remains whether those 'crazy Belgians' will ever realise that they are burdening current and future generations of Europeans with two new urban masochistic crimes. It's high time to make them realise this and to offer the relevant authorities (local, federal and European) the proper means and strategies with which to translate their complex national structure and internal differences into a workable contemporary architectural and urban-design policy for Brussels. The future European Capital deserves nothing less.
Bert de Muynck, architect and cultural scholar All three images overdub by Bert de Muynck, 2003 Translation: Billy Nolan more information: |
Master plan image Thurn & Taxis courtesy of HOK/Project T&T