Brussels Park
Brussels Park | |
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Brussels Park
The park is surrounded by the
).History
Origins
Brussels Park lies on the site of the gardens of the former
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The palace and gardens of Coudenberg in 1659, L. Vorsterman the Younger
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The archdukes Albert and Isabella walking in the park of their Brussels palace,Jan Bruegel the Elder, c. 1609–1621[4]
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Hunting scene in the park of the Coudenberg Palace, Ignatius van der Stock, early 17th century[5]
Destruction and redesign
The palace burned down on the night of 3 February 1731 in a fire that took much of the original royal complex.[3][6] This left behind a field of ruins and a neglected park. Some proposed a partial reconstruction of the site, but the money was lacking. It was not until April 1775, in commemoration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine's reign as Governor-General of the Austrian Netherlands, that the States of Brabant, the representation of the three estates (nobility, clergy and commoners) to the court of the Duke of Brabant, proposed to erect a statue in his honour. Georg Adam von Starhemberg, minister plenipotentiary to Empress Maria Theresa, suggested placing it before the ruins that had been levelled for the occasion. In the process, he proposed enlarging the former square in front of the palace, lining it with regular buildings and redesigning the park.
At the same time, the Viennese representative informed the Brussels' authorities of the governor's wish for the old park to be given a new shape "in order to increase the comfort of the public in this way and at the same time contribute to the embellishment of the capital and to make it by this means worthy of the stay of the Court and the curiosity of foreigners".[7] The Empress granted conditional approval on 1 July 1775, provided that the City of Brussels would bear the costs. The city undertook the levelling of the ground for the construction of the park and the three adjacent roads—the Rue Royale/Koningsstraat, the Rue du Brabant/Brabantstraat (now the Rue de la Loi/Wetstraat) and the Rue Ducale/Hertogstraat—while the government took charge of the development of the park itself.
The new park was designed and laid out between 1776 and 1783 in a
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Plan of the Place Royale/Koningsplein and Brussels Park by Joachim Zinner , 1780
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View of Brussels Park, coloured etching engraved by J.B. Probst after A. Rooland, c. 1775–1800
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Brussels Park and the Council Palace of Brabant, Aurèle-Augustin Simons, 1789[8]
Later history
The park witnessed many events unfold during its history. In 1793,
Since the 19th century, the park has been surrounded by a double row of lime trees, which emphasises the perspectives on either side. The establishment of the Academy Palace and the Royal Palace modified its western flank in the 1820s. The monumental neoclassical railings surrounding the park were installed in 1849, using public funding and based on the designs by the architect Tilman-François Suys. The southern entrance to the central path was designed by the architect Joseph Poelaert in 1857 and executed in 1858, before being moved further north in 1904–1908.[9]
In the 20th century, a large number of buildings surrounding the park were demolished and rebuilt, sometimes without respecting their original appearance and swapping the painted coating for a white stone facing. The first sports activities were organised in the park in 1920.
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Assault on the Park of Brussels, a scene from the Belgian Revolution (Constantinus Fidelio Coene, 1830)
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Brussels Park's fountain in 1870, etching from L'Illustration Européenne
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La promenade (Franz Gailliard , 1896), with the park as setting
Buildings and monuments
Brussels Park is home to several public buildings and monuments:[10]
Royal Park Theatre
The
Vauxhall of Brussels
The Vauxhall of Brussels (or Waux-Hall), a meeting and concert venue, built in the 1780s, is located behind the Park Theatre. Its foundation was an initiative of the Bultos family. From 1820 to 1870, its premises housed the Concert Noble, a noble society of Brussels' Music Academy. The aristocratic society organised balls and concerts there and had a new banquet hall built against the existing building by the architect Charles Vander Straeten , nowadays occupied by the exclusive French-speaking club Cercle Gaulois. The rest of the Vauxhall was extensively renovated in 1913 by the City of Brussels' architect François Malfait . Striking is the green trelliswork of the gallery, with its dome à l'impériale.
Vauxhall bandstand
The Vauxhall's wooden bandstand, built in 1913, is located along the enclosure at the building's rear end. It is a refurbished bandstand in neo-Moorish style that housed the summer concerts of the Royal Theatre of La Monnaie from 1852. At the request of the City of Brussels, which was seeking to relaunch a breathless entertainment venue, the stage pavilion topped with an imperial dome and decorated with wooden trellises was rebuilt in 1913 by the architect Malfait. Lacking the expected success, it was abandoned ten years later. An enlightened amateur, Éric d'Huart, undertook the restoration from 1987 to make it his home.
Bandstand
The park's main bandstand was built in 1841 by the architect Jean-Pierre Cluysenaar for national holiday celebrations. This ornate twelve-sided cast iron kiosk was initially intended for the roundabout in the park opposite the Palace of the Nation, but was soon moved to a higher spot within the park. For more than a century, it has been used regularly for concerts and fanfare orchestras.
Water basins
Two water basins with fountains are located in the park: a main one, constructed in 1855, and an octagonal one, constructed in 1780, whose sides are located for one half in the extension of the paths and for the other in front of the cut sides separating the paths. The eight busts of Hermes surrounding it were formerly powered by the hydraulic machine of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode.
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Bandstand by Jean-Pierre Cluysenaar
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One of the park's Art Deco lampposts, by Antoine Durenne
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The park's main fountain with the Palace of the Nation in the background
Sculptures
Brussels Park contains around sixty sculptures, primarily inspired by Greco-Roman mythology, created by sculptors including Gabriël Grupello, Jan-Baptiste van der Haeghen , Laurent Delvaux, François-Joseph Janssens , Gilles-Lambert Godecharle, Thomas Vinçotte and Jean-Michel Folon. The oldest, for the most part, come from the park of the Castle of Tervuren from which they were moved at the time of the death of its owner, Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine. Paying a heavy price for wars, vandalism and pollution, they have mostly been replaced by copies.
Originally, the statues were painted in grey or French stone tones. It was not until 1921 that, yielding to a fashion, a systematic stripping programme was put in place.
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Diana by Gabriël Grupello
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Commerce and Navigation by Gilles-Lambert Godecharle
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Monument to Peter the Great
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Statue of a lion at the park's entrance near the Royal Palace
Remarkable trees
The park's central path is mainly lined with plane trees. As for the two paths leading to Place Royale and Place du Trône, they are respectively planted with chestnut trees and a varied mixture of high-stemmed trees (e.g. maples, beeches, plane trees, chestnut trees, etc.). The two transverse paths are adorned with elms and beeches. All around the park, there is also a double row of trellised lime trees, which reinforces the elaborate appearance of this green ensemble.[7]
Below are some of the park's remarkable trees listed by the Monuments and Sites Commission:[11]
English name | Latin name | cir. in cm |
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London plane
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Platanus x hispanica | 345 |
Horse-chestnut
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Aesculus hippocastanum | 325 |
Sycamore | Acer pseudoplatanus | 304 |
Oriental plane
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Platanus orientalis | 290 |
European beech
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Fagus sylvatica | 283 |
European ash
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Fraxinus excelsior | 222 |
Norway maple
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Acer platanoides | 202 |
Common hackberry
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Celtis occidentalis | 126 |
Japanese zelkova
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Zelkova serrata | 106 |
See also
- List of parks and gardens in Brussels
- History of Brussels
- Belgium in the long nineteenth century
References
Footnotes
- ^ The current "Royal Park" is in Laeken (northern Brussels), opposite the Royal Palace of Laeken and the Royal Domain, and is accessible by the Avenue du Parc royal/Koninklijk Parklaan.
Citations
- ^ a b c d "Parc de Bruxelles". Bruxelles Environnement (in French). 31 March 2015. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
- ^ a b "Brussels Park". www.visit.brussels. Retrieved 9 September 2023.
- ^ a b c Mardaga 1994, p. 222.
- ^ "De aartshertogen in het park". Coudenbergpaleis (in Dutch). Retrieved 1 May 2022.
- ^ "Jachttafereel in het park van de Coudenberg". Coudenbergpaleis (in Dutch). Retrieved 1 May 2022.
- ^ Wasseige 1995, p. 6–7.
- ^ a b "Parc de Bruxelles – Inventaire du Patrimoine Naturel". sites.heritage.brussels (in French). Retrieved 1 May 2022.
- ^ "Le parc de Bruxelles et le Palais du Conseil du Brabant / Musée de la Ville de Bruxelles - Maison du Roi – Inventaire du patrimoine mobilier". collections.heritage.brussels (in French). Retrieved 1 May 2022.
- ^ a b "Parc de Bruxelles – Inventaire du patrimoine architectural". monument.heritage.brussels (in French). Retrieved 1 May 2022.
- ^ a b Het Park van Brussel (Warande) Archived 2014-03-06 at the Wayback Machine (in Dutch)
- ^ "CRMS-KCML". www.kcml.irisnet.be. Retrieved 25 May 2019.
Bibliography
- Boulanger-Français, Jacques; Jacobs, Roel (1993). Parcs et jardins de Bruxelles (in French). Brussels: Région de Bruxelles-Capitale.
- Demey, Thierry (2003). Bruxelles en vert (in French). Brussels: Badeaux. ISBN 978-2-9600414-0-8.
- Des Marez, Guillaume (1918). Guide illustré de Bruxelles (in French). Vol. 1. Brussels: Touring Club Royal de Belgique.
- Duquenne, Xavier (1993). Le Parc de Bruxelles (in French). Brussels: CFC Éditions. ISBN 978-2-930018-18-8.
- Hannequart, Jean-Pierre; Schamp, Eric; Pulings, Marie-Claude (1996). Découvrir Bruxelles par ses Espaces Verts (in French). Brussels: Institut bruxellois pour la Gestion de l'Environnement, Commission communautaire française.
- Heymans, Vincent (2014). Le Palais du Coudenberg à Bruxelles : Du château médiéval au site archéologique (in French). Brussels: Éditions Mardaga. ISBN 978-2-8047-0156-7.
- Jacobs, Roel (2013). Bruxelles-Pentagone (in French). Brussels: CFC Éditions. ISBN 978-2-930018-88-1.
- Van Win, Jean (2012). Bruxelles maçonnique. Faux mystères et vrais symboles (in French). Brussels: Télélivre. ISBN 978-2-930331-09-6.
- Wasseige, Manoëlle (1995). Le Quartier Royal. Bruxelles, ville d'Art et d'Histoire (in French). Vol. 15. Brussels: Éditions de la Région de Bruxelles-Capitale.
- Le Patrimoine monumental de la Belgique: Bruxelles (PDF) (in French). Vol. 1C: Pentagone N-Z. Liège: Pierre Mardaga. 1994.
External links
- Media related to Brussels Park at Wikimedia Commons