Park of Brussels

A little history

The creation of the park of Brussels (in Dutch: Warandepark ) coincides with that of the place Royale, built starting from 1775 on the ruins of the castle of the dukes of the Brabant, located at the top of Coudenberg and commonly called since the fire which devastated it in 1731, “Old Court” or “burned Court”.

Altered and increased under Jean III of the Brabant and then under Philippe the Good, the castle was surrounded of the place of the Buckets, enclosed, and, with the back, of a park divided into two parts: the large park or warande , reserve with game which extended, at the end of the reign of Charles Quint, to the street of Leuwen and with the ramparts located Porte of Namur; the small park, located in the small valley of Koperbeek, between the back of the palate and wood. This one included/understood a private pleasure garden, called with the wire of its successive refittings, sometimes “Broken into leaf”, sometimes “Labyrinth” by evocation of the cradles of greenery, gantries and basins of the labyrinth of Corinthe. On the opposed slope, a vineyard, an orangery and birdcages of exotic birds and, in the remainder of the small valley, a garden of flowers and a pond decorated the unit.

The castle is the prey of the flames in the night from February 3rd to 4th 1731. The fire took in the kitchens where one prepared confectioneries for the next ball. It leaves behind him a field of ruins and a forsaken park. Of aucuns propose a rebuilding partial of the site, but the money misses. For the twenty-fifth birthday of its installation as governor of the Austrian Netherlands, the States of the Brabant wished to set up a statue with Charles of Lorraine. The prince de Starhemberg, ambassador plenipotentiary for the empress Marie-Therese of Austria, proposed to install it on the place, in front of the ruins flush for the occasion. In the tread, it suggested extending the place, bordering it of regular buildings and altering the park. The empress gave her agreement on July 1st 1775, provided that the Ville of Brussels assumes the financing of it. Difficult, the negotiations will lead to the signature of two conventions, one for the place, the other for the park. The City ensured the financing of the roadway systems bordering while the government took the installation of the park to its load.

The will of the originator of the plan of the district, Barnabe Guimard assisted, for the installation of the park, of Joachim Zinner, was to make, of the quadrilateral formed by the park, a central point of reorganization of the surrounding district by equipping it with good communications with the city expanding. Work will be spread out 1776 with 1783. All is levelled and remade: 1.218 trees are cut down to trace the new alleys in branching crossroads which connect the Law courts of Brussels, the Royal palace of Brussels, the palate of the Nation and the Place of the Throne.

But in 1793, the French revolutionary occupants devastate it and cut down wildly the statues and the busts of the Roman Emperors which one had decorated it.

The Town of Brussels, which manages the park as of 1797 before becoming about it owner by royal decree of April 23rd 1817, attempts to repair the damage and repopulates soon the park of statues and current busts. With money court, it organizes at once a public subscription at the end which the direction of the maintenance of the park is entrusted to the thirty more generous givers. The results largely exceed waitings and the victorious patrons delegate seven representatives who constitute the commission of the park.

At the time of the revolution of independence of Belgium, the park is used as refuge with the Dutch army besieged by the insurrectionists from September 23rd to 27th 1830, date of its retirement towards Antwerp.

Victim of the ravages of time, the park was the subject of an in-depth restoration campaign which was completed in 2001. Trees were cut down and replanted, the revivified coppices, the ways and the lawns recut and remade, renovated furniture and the rebuilt kiosks on the side of the Royal palace.

A geometrical and forest party

The Royal park, which is in fact a large rectangle with the cut angles, is designed according to the principles of the classical architecture while preserving a forest character. The geometrical composition is determined by the urban constraints of the neighbouring streets that the alleys of the park prolong.

The routes , which occupy about half of the surface, comprise three large alleys in branching crossroads, intersected with two transverse alleys ensuring the connection between Ducal the Royale streets and on the one hand and the bottom of the city on the other hand. The axis of the right alley of the branching crossroads is determined by the Royale place, itself shifted compared to the street Royale because of the presence of an elbow of the old ramparts and need for maintaining roadway systems preexistent. Lastly, a decorated alley external of trained limes surrounds totality of the park.

The symbols maconnic that of aucuns wanted to see in this layout - the compass in particular - are attested by any document. It is, of the remainder, a drawing usually used in the layout of the landscape gardens since the 17th century.

With the crossroads of the three ways, close to the main entrance located opposite the Parliament, a circular place is decorated of a fountain since 1855. It is about one monument to the work of water conveyance from which Brussels came to be equipped to ensure the current water supply of its inhabitants. The sources were collected beyond Braine-l' Al. This site inspired more than one artist since it was a question of building there a memorial with Marie-Therese and Joseph II, an obelisk in remembering Waterloo or Belgian Révolution. They fortunately found place elsewhere.

The mature standing timbers bordered of coppice, the trees of alignment along the large alleys and both living rooms of greenery on the side of the Place of the Palates, give to the unit a a little austere forest character. Ordered plantations enclose thickets the made-to-order of the cabinets of greenery, Versailles, Beloeil and besides. All the attempts to establish floors of flowers failed.

The resistance opposed regularly by the public when it is question of the renewal of the solid masses opposed their regeneration since the installation of the park. As example, it should have been waited until the elm, which dominated the other gasolines with the Royal park, completely disappeared at the time of the last epidemic, in 1979, to replace the 360 trees died by lime, oak and beech.

From 1781, one starts to surround the park of grids stopped by monumental , flanked doors the pedestal ones or oven walls decorated with sculptures to the reasons huntings of Gilles-Lambert Godecharle. Three of them were offered by the Abbaye of Cambron in the Hainaut. The wrought iron fence on plinth profiled out of blue stone will be supplemented thanks to a public subscription of 1849 for 1851. Its plans are drawn by the architect of the district Léopold, Tilman-François Suys.

Side of the Place of the Palates, two eight depth meters funnels surprise the visitor. Vestiges of the old park, the hollows were not entirely filled at the time of installation. The extent of the task made move back its originators. Also they were drawn in gardens with English and were enclosed. In 1830, they will be used of shelter and tomb with the Dutch troops driven back by the insurrectionists. To the wire of time, their reputation of den of iniquity, theater in full day of contrary scenes to the moralities, will lead to their closing with the public. The retaining wall, surmounted of a balustrade, is added in 1907 by the architect of Léopold II, Henri Maquet, which, with the contempt of the opposition of the City, had tried to still cut down the park with the profit by the Place of the Palates. This one had however been widened 30 meters, three years before, to release the new frontage of the Royal palace and to allow the installation of the gardens which border it. Angry, the City will obtain the judgment in justice of the adviser of the king.

On the wall of right-hand side, seven wrought iron letters are “V.I.T.R.I.O.L. ”, while on left, one finds out of mirror “L.O.I.R.T.I.V.”. These letters are the abbreviation of Visita Interioræ Terræ Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem (Visit the interior of the Earth and by rectifying you you will find the stone hidden).

Some buildings and monuments

royal Theater of the Park : the northern frontage of the Vauxhall, several times altered, shelters a theater which was used at the same time of village hall and literary cabinet, where newspapers and novels were placed at the disposal of the public for a penny. To the great displeasure of évêché of Malignant, of the children, pupils actors, gave varied representations to it: mimes, ballets, proverbs, burlesques comedies, small operas. The institution changes vocation towards 1890, passing from the variety and the operettas to the traditional theater. Several times altered by the addition of a hood, balconies and of a gantry, the building knew a deep restoration in the year 2000 following a serious fire.
Vauxhall : borrowed from a locality created in London in 1732, the word “Vauxhall” evokes a garden of attractions. That of the park of Brussels east built by a family of café owners and distillers, Bultos, who exploited already a bar under a Turkish tent with the angle of the streets of the Law and Ducale. Inspired by the buildings of the Royal place, the traditional frontage, which had with Louis Montoyer, includes/understands nine regular spans, of which a broader power station with pediment, marked pilasters without capital. A big room decorated with Corinthian pilasters is used as coffee, three small of restaurant. Seven houses, of which a Chinese cabinet, surround the building. Of 1820 with 1870, its buildings shelter the “Noble Concert”, company peerage-book of the academy of music which organizes balls and concerts there. This one joins with the masonry a new room of festivals, within Charles Vander Straeten, architect of the Palais of the Academies and the castle of Tervuren. Under the aegis of the artistic Circle and arts person which succeeds to him in the places, Eugene Ysaÿe interprets there the first of the sonata for violin and piano of its professor, César Franck, before it makes the round the world tour. The building is still increased. Association amalgamates after war with the Gallic Circle which occupies the places still today.
Kiosk of the Vauxhall : behind the Vauxhall, at the bottom of the enclosure, a kiosk renovated in a Moorish style sheltered the concerts of summer of the royal Théâtre of the Currency starting from 1852. At the request of the City which sought to start again a place of breathless animation, a house with scene surmounted of one dome to imperial and decorated with trellis-work out of wooden was rebuilt in 1913 by the Malfait architect. Fault of discounted success, it is abandoned ten years later. A lit amateur, Eric d' Huart, undertake the restoration as from 1987 of it to make his residence of it.
Bandstand : to shelter the celebrations of the national festivals, the architect of reputation Jean-Pierre Cluysenaar - author in particular of the royal Galleries Saint-Hubert, the royal Conservatory of music and of the installation of the place of the Panoramas and the hollows of the Royal street - built in 1841 a decorated cast iron kiosk at twelve sides, in the middle of the roundabout which faces the Parliament. Quickly moved in a solid mass, it will be during more than one century a high place of the music of harmony.
octagonal Basin : basin whose sides are located for a half in the prolongation of the alleys and for the other opposite the cut sides separating the alleys. The eight statues “Hermes” were fed formerly by the hydraulic machine of Saint-Jose-ten-Noode.

The garden of the sculptures

The park of Brussels contains an about sixty sculptures inspired of mythology gréco-Roman. They come, for the majority, of the park of the castle of Tervuren of which they were moved at the time of died of its owner, Charles of Lorraine. Paying heavy a tribe with the wars, vandalism and pollution, they, for the majority, summer replaced by copies.

Originally, the statues were painted in tons gray or hones France. It is only starting from 1921 that, yielding to a fashion, a program of systematic scouring was set up.

Léda (Jean-Baptiste Van der Haeghen, 1774): linked princess with Zeus disguised in swan.
Apollo (François-Joseph Janssens, 1770): god of the light, wire of Zeus.
Narcisse (Gabriel Grupello, 1670, copy Albert Desenfans, 1899): wire of a river and a nymph, enthusiast of its image in water of a fountain.
Diane (Gabriel Grupello, 1670): goddess of hunting, accompanied by a greyhound and carrying a quiver with arrows on the back.
Venus with the doves (Augustin Olivier, 1774, copy Albert Desenfans, 1885): goddess of the love and fruitfulness
Venus with the mirror (Pierre Puyenbroeck, 1832): goddess of the love and fruitfulness.
Twelve Roman Emperors in bust (allotted to Laurent Delvaux, 1782): around the principal fountain.
Monument with Gilles-Lambert Godecharle (Thomas Vinçotte, 1881).
trade and navigation (Gilles-Lambert Godecharle, 1784): represented by two children, one capped of the winged hat holding the Mercury caduceus with the hand, the other pressing its hand on a medallion struck with the figure of prince de Starhemberg, Austrian ambassador plenipotentiary in Brussels under Marie-Therese.
arts and science (Gilles-Lambert Godecharle, 1784): represented by two children. On a medallion the plan of the park is reproduced.
Méléagre killing a wild boar (Pierre Lejeune, 1782): irritated against the father of Méléagre, Œnée, king de Calydon, Artémis sent a furious wild boar which devastated its state campaigns. Méléagre fought it and triumphed over it.
Adonis killed by a wild boar (Pierre Lejeune, 1782).
barking Dog (Alphonse De Tombay, 1895).
marine Venus (copy of the Mélot Aegis, 1878): flanked busts of Alexandre the Large one and Cléopâtre, bitten by the aspic after being overcome by the Romans.
Terms or hermès (Laurent Delvaux, 1782): around the octagone, representation of men whose body is, except for the head and of the feet out of white marble, enclosed in a sheath of stone scales.
Young girl with the shell (Alphonse De Tombay, 1901): fountain-feeding trough intended to refresh the stripped children not being able to attend the refreshment bar. Copper goblets were formerly attached to the barrel by a chain.
Charity (Michel Vervoort, XVIIIe century): woman with three children, surrounded by two busts, of which expiring Lucrèce.
Flora (Laurent Delvaux, 1782): goddess of the vegetation.
Pomone (Laurent Delvaux, 1782): protective nymph of the fruits.
Lion (Alphonse De Tombay, 1895): the leg on a sphere.
repenting Marie-madeleine (Jerome of Quesnoy, 1779): slept in a cave with fountain (1878). According to a legend, the holy one would recall the memory of a young Inhabitant of Brussels refused to an young man of too modest condition. Of sorrow, it would have drowned in a pond of the hollow of the park.
Bust of the tsar Pierre the Large one (1856), bronzes offered to the City by prince Demidoff in remembering one cooked of the Russian emperor, who had regurgity a dish too sprinkled with the foot of the Madeleine in 1717.
Two lions hones some (Joseph Dubois, 1780): on the balustrade which skirts the place of the Palates.
On the pillars of the central door vis-a-vis the Royal palace, women with cherub representing:

spring (Victor Poelaert, 1858)
the summer (the Aegis Mélot, 1858).

Other access doors: 8 carved groups (Gilles-Lambert Godecharle, 1782): reasons huntings dominated by a sitted cherub.

References

Xavier Duquenne, the Park of Brussels , Brussels, CFC-Editions, 1993.
Thierry Demey, Brussels in green , Brussels, Badeaux, 2003, pp. 224 to 233.

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