Belgium from A to Z

What can you experience in Belgium?

A for abbey, absurdity, archaeology, Art Nouveau

B for beer, battlefields, billiard, beguinages, belfries, baroque

C for comic strip, capitalism, castle, chocolate, cycling, cheese, chicory, carnival, ceramics

D for danse, democracy, diamonds, diplomacy, Father Damien

E for European Union

F for fashion, food, federalism, fries, festivals

G for gardens, gothic architecture, green, glass

H for humanists, history, humor

I for industrial heritage, international

J for jenever

K for kermesse

L for lace, languages, liberal

M for musea, monarchy, mussels, medieval cities

N for neutrality

O for old

P for painters, politics, Poirot, pralines, printing, paper

Q for the Queen Elizabeth contest, but also quaint museums

R for religious orders/life, rain, railways

S for saxophone, spa, self-deprecating, soccer, surrealism, sprouts

T for tennis, trade, trappist, taxes

U for urban

V for vegetables, vol-au-vent

W for waffles, world exhibition, waterzooi

Z for zoology

None of these are uniquely Belgian in isolation, but in combination, they make Belgium a pretty unique country consisting of beautiful Brussels, fabulous Flanders and wonderful Wallonia.

Grand-Hornu - industrial paternalism in the Borinage

In 1810, at the age of 36 years, Henri De Gorge acquired the colliery of Grand-Hornu. At the time, Belgium was emerging as the second industrial nation in the world after Britain. The steel, mining and textile industries rapidly developed. Railroads were built. Fortunes were made (and lost).
The Borinage region in the South of the Hainaut province played a major role in this development. The Borinage already had a long coal cultures, starting in the early 18th century, when farmers dug up coal from their fields. Coal was used initially for domestic purposes. By 1730, 110 pits operated in the region. In the year 1820, ¾ of the coal demand in France was supplied from the Borinage.At its peak, the Hainaut region provided 30% of world coal supply in 1870.
During the coal boom, the region failed to develop other industries,and become too much dependent on its coal industry. After the gradual decline and eventual demise of the industry in the 20th century, the region was bled white.

The resulting abject poverty of the Borinage was captured by the 1933 documentary by Henri Storck and Joris Ivens ‘Misère Au Borinage’. It shows the slums surrounding mines, high unemployment, child labour, … A recent movie from Patric Jean shows that these conditions still continue until today, though the mines have now closed meanwhile.

Back in 1810, things looked much brighter. The world was rapidly moving away from charcoal to coal, for which demand was insatiable. Between 1810 to 1830 (the year of Belgium’s independence), Henri De Gorge developed Grand-Hornu, increased its annual production from 10,000 tonnes to 120,000 tonnes. The number of pits grew from 2 to 12.

He built an elegant complex of offices, stables, workshops, foundries and furnaces in neo-classical style. He surrounded it with 440 worker’s houses. With 2 floors of 3 rooms each, they were beyond comparison with living conditions elsewhere in the region in terms of luxury and facilities. The site included a hospital, food shop, a bakery, butchery, schools, recreation facilities, ...

Grand-Hornu is unique in various respects. For its elegant, classicist architecture which is unusual for an industrial estate. Or for its scale of industrial paternalism. It was not unusual for industry to provide housing to workers, but not at the scale of 440 units. The story of Grand-Hornu is also a story of early industrialisation, when captains of industry lacked infrastructure taken for granted today. Grand-Hornu, together with a couple of other collieries has been proposed for the tentative list of Unesco World Heritage sites.

Did Henri De Gorges take care well of his employees? Was he a social entrepreneur ahead of his time? The rationale of building these relatively comfortable homes was to attract and retain workers in the mine. With a shortage of labour, and many pits operating in the region and in Northern France competing for skilled labourers, Grand-Hornu depended on sufficient manpower for its development.

On the one hand, we see a picture of benevolent paternalism, where Henri De Gorge provides an income, housing, healthcare, food, education and recreation to his employees. On the other, we learn that workers could never buy but only rent their housing on a weekly basis, and remain there only as long as they were employed by the mine. There were problems with health - 35% of miners suffers from nystagmus, a condition of involuntary eye movement, 60% were affected by silicosis, a respiratory disease (which was only recognised in 1964 as an occupational hazard). In the early days, the use of naked-flame lamps caused frequent, deadly accidents.

The actual situation will probably have been somewhere in the middle between benevolent paternalism and ruthless exploitation, though most sources tend to report in favour of Henri De Gorge.

Grand-Hornu, remained in operation until 1954. The current site is still largely preserved, used as a culture centre. It houses the Musée des Arts Contemporain (MAC; same times; www.mac-s.be ). The houses around Grand-Hornu remain occupied, though now in private ownership. The visit to the estate, including audio-guide takes about an hour.

References

1. Fontaine, J. (2011, May 21). Borinage. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved December 10, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borinage 
2. Grand-Hornu. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2011, from http://www.grand-hornu.be/ 
3. Greefs, H., Blonde, B., & Clark, P. (2005). Chapter 13. In Towns, regions and industries (pp. 210-211). Manchester University Press.
   Google Books http://bit.ly/ujTTQz
4. Hudson, K. (1979). World Industrial Archaeology (pp. 60-62). Cambridge University Press.
   Available as Google Book http://bit.ly/rLhiFJ
5. Jean, P. (Director). (2011, June 8). Poverty in former coalmine area [Video]. Retrieved December 10, 2011, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZxEMDc1M80
6. Les sites miniers majeurs de Wallonie. (2008, April 8). UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Retrieved December 10, 2011, from http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5363/
7. Misère au Borinage. (n.d.). Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved December 9, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misère_au_Borinage
8. [Preface]. (1981). In G. L. Brabander (Author), Regional specialization, employment, and economic growth in Belgium from 1846 to 1970 (p. I). New York: Arno Press.
   Also available through Google Books http://bit.ly/ui7Pji

Bakery Museum in Veurne

We visited the Bakery Museum on the way back from France and were unfortunate to pick one of the days without a workshop. There are about 200 workshops per year, so make sure you visit when there is one scheduled.
The setting of the museum is in the restored, 17th century Zuidgasthoeve (‘hoeve’ means ‘farm’ in Flemish and Dutch). It collects material related to Belgium’s (recent) bakery heritage.

The visit goes through a series of exhibits of what can be expected - a reconstruction of an old bakery shop, tools from the atelier, … Interesting are the videos showing the intricate, artisanal process of producing a caramel candy called babelutten, a specialty from the Belgian coast.

The best part however starts when you move to the barn. There you see wax displays of the hundreds of types of bread used around the world. You can also see some heavy machinery, and a display on the different types of cereals and flowers.

Lambic Visitor Centre

Next to the new tourist office of Beersele, near the starting point of the Herisem walk, you’ll find the brand new (open since May 2011) Lambic visitor centre where you can learn all about this unique beer culture from the Pajottenland.
Beer has been produced in this region at least since 500, though the beers of the past were nothing like what we consume today. Particularly preserving beer was a problem - the first beers could be kept only a few days, in sharp contrast to today’s Gueuze beers, which after a second fermentation in the bottle can be preserved almost indefinitely.
The centre explains the fine differences between Lambic, Gueuze and Kriek. Lambic is produced with a mixture of wheat and barley malt. Unlike other beers, no yeast is added - fermentation takes place in a coolship where the wort is exposed to wild yeasts and bacteria in the air, that are native to the Senne valley. This process only can take place in the cooler months (seven months per year). There have been many attempts to produce Lambic outside of the Senne valley, but none successful so far. Gueuze is uniquely from Brabant.

Gueuze beers are produced by blending various Lambic beers. For the label ‘Old Gueuze’, one must use Lambic of at least 3 years old, but this needs to be combined with young Lambic (around 1 year) to ensure that refermentation occurs in the bottle.

One can easily imagine the artisanal nature of the process. In fact, it would be impossible to organise production of Gueuze beers on an industrial scale. By blending gueuze beers with various Lambics, almost infinite variation is possible.

The resulting beer has a vinous quality. It can be used in recipes where normally white wine would be used, such as fish, mussels, jelly, sabayon, ...

The brand new visitor centre takes about an hour to visit, including the video. There are regular tours at 14h00 and 16h00. The centre is organised around the products of 10 artisanal brewers, who are presented in gallery. Their products can be locally tasted. Bruno - my host - explains that bottles can be sampled in a group, to allow a party to sample the wide variety of Gueuze beers - he’ll provide each visitor with a glass to share. Beers can also be purchased for consumption at home (they cost around 2.5-3.5 euro per bottle).

Nearby, you can visit the Caste of Beersel, do one of the walks such as the Herisem walk (visit the Herisem water mill on the way), or go to the Church of our Lady, a sanctuary.

Good to know

• The current Gueuze bottle strongly resembles Champagne bottles. This shape has only been introduced in 1865.
• In 1910, Gueuze consumption went down dramatically due to the rising popularity of Pils (Lager beer).
• The name ‘Gueuze’ is protected since 1958. Since 1997, Horal protects and promotes the quality of Lambic beers and derived products.
• Lambic ripes in used wooden wine or port barrels. New barrels contain too much tannic acid to be used for Gueuze.
• During the 2011 Tour de Gueuze, brewers produced a Megablend of 8 Lambics. One Asian visitor bid 250 euro for one bottle.
• Gueuze beers contain about 6-7% alcohol.

Museum of Original Figurines

After the Belgian Comic Strip Centre and the Marc Sleen and Herge museums, Belgium now also has the Museum of Original Figurines, or MOOF. ‘Noblesse oblige’ - in our coverage of comic strip culture, we need to pay a visit, though with not too high expectations.

On 3500 m2, the MOOF displays about 600 figurines - 3D representations of comic strip heroes. They are shown individually or in a scene. These figurines are collector’s items produced typically in a series of a few hundred units. Though none of the figurines is unique, the collection probably is the largest number of figurines on display. A very wide variety of comic strip heroes is shown.

About 45 minutes suffice to visit the MOOF. If it weren’t for displays on the history of Tintin magazine or the room dedicated to the Belgian animation industry, the visit would even be faster. In the last room, the museum presents the Raymond Leblanc Foundation, with its biannual price to stimulate young comic strip talent.

As a museum, the MOOF is a bit thin. It could be a great event venue. Unfortunately, at the time of my visit, no event was taken place, and I was almost the only visitor. Let’s hope the organizers find a good direction for their project in the years to come.

Flemish Comic Strip Centre

Since 30 years, ‘t Vlaams Stripcentrum is a private, non-profit initiative to disseminate comic strip culture. With 3,000 members, 30,000 comic strips and 800,000 loans - going for a million - the centre offers a library second to none in Belgium.

From humble beginnings (a few boxes in a closet in a parish hall by a couple of scout leaders), the centre meanwhile has its own building with library, video library, information centre, comic cave and antique section.

In short, it’s a great place to discover comic strip culture in its full breadth, without spending a fortune. Many of the strips on loan are no longer available in shops. And by using the library, you support an unique initiative - fees for lending strips are used exclusively to develop the library and centre.
As a Flemish centre, the books are primarily in the Dutch language. There is a limited offering in English and French. For non-speakers of Dutch, comic strips can be a great instrument to help learn the language while in Belgium.

The location is Wilrijk, near Antwerp and about 45 minutes from Brussels. To lend comic strips, you need to become a member of the association. There are individual and family memberships, costing respectively 10 and 20 euro per year, and allowing you to lend 20 or 30 comic strips.

Saint Rumbold's Cathedral

When Lecturama published a series of 35 books about travelling in the Benelux in the eighties, it surprisingly dedicated one of the volumes to the city of Mechelen (Malines). With 12 provinces in The Netherlands, 10 in Belgium, Luxembourg as a country, and cities such as Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels, Ghent, Leuven, Liège, Namur, Rotterdam, ‘s Hertogenbosch and The Hague, why devote a full volume to Mechelen?

Located between Antwerp and Brussels, the former capital of the Low Countries tends to be neglected, in favour of Bruges or Ghent. A visit to Mechelen demonstrates that it’s yet another secret that we Belgians have kept very well to ourselves.

St Rumbold (St Rombout in Dutch) is the patron saint of Mechelen. Not much is known for certain of the 8th century saint. He’s usually believed to have died in 775, but when examining remains assumed to be his, they could be dated in the late 6th or first half of the 7th century. He’s believed to have stayed only 10 years in Mechelen, during which time he made a deep impression. His seemingly limitless resources led robbers to believe in a treasure of St Rumbold, and they kidnapped him. He was martyred but died virtually pennyless.
The tower was constructed between 1452 and 1520 as part of the cathedral. Since 1999, the tower is on the UNESCO heritage list. If is also a belfry and contains 2 carillons of 49 bells. The oldest bells date from the 15th century. The heaviest bell weighs 9 tons. A second carillon was added much more recently, in 1981.

Carillon playing was pretty much invented in Mechelen. Since 1922, Mechelen has the Royal Carillon School, offering a 6 year program. The school has over 500 graduates.

The Russian word for carillon is ‘malinoviy zvon‘ meaning ‘bell-ringing from Malines’. It was introduced by Czar Peter the First (The Great) who visited Mechelen (Malines) when in Holland and often listened to carillon playing. However, since Mechelen (Malines) is not well known in Russia, and phonetically the word malines is close to малина (raspberry), Russians may tell you that carillon playing has something to do with raspberries (thanks to my colleague Vadim for this story!).

With its height of 97 meters, the tower is a landmark for Mechelen which has otherwise few high-rise buildings. The tower is unfinished - it was planned to be 167 meters, but for unclear reasons, only 7 meters of the 77 meter spire were completed, then construction stopped for unclear reasons. Some towers in the region had recently collapsed, and it could be that the builders had insufficient confidence in the stability of the tower foundations.

At first, climbing the 538 steps of a tower might not sound too appealing. But the tower is a vertical museum in 5 rooms, topped by a panoramic view. On the way up, you pass the crane room, the forge, the bell, carillon and clock rooms. When so inclined, you can obseve the inner mechanics of the clock and carillons, or just listen to them playing a tune.

Each room takes you another 100 steps or so towards to top, where you can enjoy a panoramic view on the incredible flatness of Flanders. On a clear day, it is said, you could see the Atomium of Brussels or the Port of Antwerp. During our visit, a haze caused by the low autumn sun created a more mysterious landscape for us.