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Old
Bruges
By
Sagittarius
The facade’s pale stones look too
pure. The gilded ornaments seem too shiny after a
renovation that won the regional Monument prize. It is still
too pretty. Time needs to lend a little
help. This city, which holds the title of Cultural Capital
of Europe in 2002, has changed for the better in little more
than a generation. (The 15-nation European Union every year
designates one or more cities as a cultural capital, and this
year, Bruges shares the honor with Salamanca, Spain). Now,
Bruges is again a gem among Europe’s treasure troves
of history, its gabled houses, cobblestone streets and elegant
spires recalling the glories and riches of its halcyon days
during the late Middle Ages.
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Bruges had
been on a centuries-long decline since the Zwin waterway silted
in the dying days of the Middle Ages and traders were forced
away from Bruges harbor to nearby Antwerp. The city was stuck
with the nickname “Bruges La Morte” – “Bruges
the Dead.” From its heyday in the 13th to 15th centuries,
Bruges turned into a poor provincial backwater. Still, Bruges’
stunning riches never went away.
While acid rain and exhaust fumes blighted some outside statues,
visitors could walk into the Saint Mary’s church and come
face-to-face with the magnificent milky white marble of Michelangelo,
straight from Mediterranean south to warm the northerners in
Flanders. The “Virgin with Child” was the only statue
by the Florentine master to move outside of Italy during his
lifetime. One can find along the Dyver, perhaps the city’s
most beautiful canal and into the Groeninge Museum for a firsthand
look at the finest works of early Flemish paintings. It was,
and still is, a place brimming with the great works of Hans
Memling. Hugo Van der Goes and Rogier Vander Weyden and its
greatest masterpiece, Jan Van Eyck’s “Madonna with
Canon Van der Paele.” For wide-eyed children, however;
the museum’s highlight was undoubtedly Gerard David’s
diptych “The Judgement of Cambyses,” aka “The
Flaying of the Unjust Judge,” a few rooms farther into
the treasure house. |
Over the past three years,
the monuments of Bruges have become UNESCO (United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization) world heritage sites three
times over, first the beguinage, then the belfry and last year
its historic center as a whole. Like so much in Bruges, the
Groeninge Museum has under gone a renovation in recent years,
and the city’s second heaven a great art, the Memling Museum,
is reopening after a three years closure, in time for the culture
capital celebrations, which tick off Feb 20, 2002.
During the 1970s, the city had to actively attract visitors
and ended up with a couple hundred thousand. Now, the mayor
says the city is seeking to contain the hordes of the tourists
who flock to the city, totaling 3.5 million last year. The city
has invited the celebrated Japanese architect Toyo to build
an ephemeral pavilion in honeycomb aluminum and glass in the
shadows of centuries old architecture. Just as airily light
will be a bridge on spiny supports by Swiss architect Juerg
Conzett spanning the Coupure canal, which has broken up the
city’s embankment for 250 years. Next year, the locals
will finally be able to circumnavigate the city by bike or foot
on a trial passing windmills and greenery. Among the new projects,
the 1,200- seat concert hall outdoes them all for sheer mass
and controversy. First estimated at about $25 million, its construction
already in running well over budget.
The hall is sheer drama with its rust- colored 100-foot-high
boxes giving a flesh of modernity beside the historic center
‘tZand. With two main churches and the belfry, it should
become Bruges’ fourth landmark building. Another attraction
is the city’s hotels and restaurants. In the past, Bruges
was heaven for waffles in one of the coffee and teahouses lining
the canals and gabled streets. Now, it has Belgium’s only
three-star Michelin restaurant outside Brussels, and the Karmeliet’s
chef, Geert Van Hecke, was invited to cook for the 15 European
Union government leaders at a special summit in Brussels in
December.
Back on the culture capital agenda, the exhibition high point
will be the Groeninge Museum spring exhibit, “ Jan Van
Eyck, early Netherlandish panting and southern Europe.”
Illustrating how to Flemish masters fanned out south to Italy,
Spain and Portugal to learn and teach. It will combine the finest
of the Groeninge’s collection with imports from Giovanni
Beeline, Antonello da Messina and other southern masters. During
the summer, the exhibit will highlight another north-south combination
through cosmopolitan Bruges during the late Middle Ages, when
it was at the heart of the Hanseatic string of trading cities
and also had close ties to Italy’s Medici family. As of
the Feb. 20 opening, contemporary art will spread over the city,
much like the tentacles of the octopus exhibit that lets artists
perform in different location spread across town. The culture
capital year ends with a series of celebrations on the weekend
of Nov 16, 2002. |
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