Belgium Thick Skinned Lifestyle Scar Studded Fashion Vast Airs

Transcription

volume 02 — issue 03
Neighbourhood Life + Global Style
Belgium Thick Skinned Lifestyle Scar Studded Fashion Vast Airs
Design The Land of the New Culture Godly Structures + The Travel Special
Do not throw on the public domain.
THE BIG ISSUE
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6
EDITOR’S LETTER
The Word Magazine Is
Nicholas ‘Big Babakins’ Lewis
We smoke, slam doors, drink, fight, pout, cry, throw tantrums and
exaggerate. Yet, we love.
Advertising
Benoît ‘Big Lips’ Berben
We complain, envy, dwell on, bemoan, accuse, use and abuse. Yet,
we still love.
Editor-at-large
Hettie ‘Big Fat No-No’ Judah
Issues. We have our fair share of them here at ‘Word Maison’,
although we’re working hard towards containing them, hoping they
don’t defi ne us, but merely expose us.
Design
Delphine ‘Big Up’ Dupont
+ pleaseletmedesign
This ninth installment of The Word, brought to you on the back of
much soul-searching and second-guessing, is an exercise in straighttalk and uncensored exposure. Unashamed, unforgiving and unobstructed. It reveals issues you should be thinking about, debates
ones you’ll be all too familiar with and exposes others you yourself
have been entangled in. In most cases, it speaks about those issues
you don’t want to speak about.
Fashion
Eléonore ‘I ♥ Big’ Vanden Eynde
Photography/Illustration
Jean ‘Big’ Biche
Ulrike ‘Big Flash’ Biets
Sarah ‘Big E.Smalls’ Eechaut
Sarah ‘Big Saint’ Michielsen
Opération ‘Big Busta’ Panda
Yassin ‘Big Nose’ Serghini
Not that we’re revealing any major secrets here. We’re simply taking
a fresh look and encouraging taking action.
We ask four award-winning, under-aged overachievers to voice their
rage in an open-ended letter to the people on the issues close to their
heart, visit Europe’s first eco-built retail emporium and lounge it out
with a larger-than-life neighbourhood character for our Institution
section. Our Design chapter sees us nominating our very own mayor
for our very own newly-created regional power-broker whilst in our
Culture section we capture the intimidating world of places of worship.
Writers
Colette ‘Big Love’ Hutchinson
Hettie ‘Big Fat No-No’ Judah
Nicholas ‘Big Babakins’ Lewis
Karen ‘The Big She Been
Queen’ Van Godtsenhoven
Randa ‘Big Pimpin’ Wazen
Speaking of worship, you’ll need to wait a little longer than usual
for your next issue of yours truly. Put simply, we will not be doing
a July-August issue of The Word, preferring instead to bring you a
September-October one (The Nano Issue), a November one (The
Nippon Issue) and, fi nally, a December one (The Heritage Issue).
Thank you's:
Mélisande ‘May of The Big
River’ Burnie
Lali Davies
Maria ‘Big Butter Milk’ Groot
Thomas Huot-Marchand
Alix Pelletier Luginbhl
Gintare ‘Big Lady K’ Parulyte
Alia Papageorgiou
Olga Slavkina
Julien van Havere
Peter ‘Big Hug’ von Grumme
In the meantime, we’ll be organizing intimate barbecues right here
in our courtyard which we’ll keep you posted on, and you can also
look forward to the second of Word exhibitions, design-focused this
time, during the month of September. All to be announced on our
website and Facebook page…
The Word is still here, still spreading, for those who might have
thought differently.
See you in September,
Stating your full name
and address in the
communication box.
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8
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Riders on the Cloud
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The Mad Barber
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Thinking Big
The Mighty Punt
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Megalopolitan City Blues
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My Book Weighs a Tonne
The One That Never Loses
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The Nano Issue
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07. Culture
The Shelf
The Pencil
The Eye
03. Lifestyle
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High Plains Drifter
06. Design
02. Belgium
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All you need to know about banking
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10
THE XXXL ISSUE
THE CONTRIBUTORS
It’s a
Word’s
World
Gintare Parulyte
Intern
¤
Vincent Fournier
Photographer
¤
When Vincent told us he wanted
to shoot for the magazine, needless to say we were more than
happy to oblige. A Frenchman
based in Brussels, this loveable
character shoots for Wallpaper
and Mixte, as well as having also
published his own art photography book, Space Project
(see The Cinematic Issue). For
this issue’s Travel Special, he
captured the essence of Vilhelm
Hammershøii‘s world of interiors to create a mesmerisingly
eerie series of prints.
—
Pages n° 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66
ERRATUM
A small error inserted itself in
our previous issue’s Papers (The
Movie Mecca). Marino was in fact
into comic strips as a youngster,
and not cartoons as we had
understood. We apologise for
this slight misinterpretation.
Ask her to find a bunch of old
cinema seats for a shoot in 12
hours or, more challenging yet, to
get hold of a panoply of disregarded music stands and rest assured
Gintare, The Word’s intern
for the past three months, will
more than deliver. A Lithuanian
brought up in Luxembourg, her
exuberant and relentless enthusiasm made her an invaluable asset
in holding it down for the
[email protected]
title.
Virassamy
Illustrator
¤
When Delphine suggested
Virassamy to illustrate the
invading and sometimes
hazy concept that is Cloud
Computing, little had we
imagined he’d be a perfect fit
for what we were looking for.
Referential in his work although
never overly so, his pencil-touch
simplicity with undertones of
humouristic hoopla made for a
perfect visual accompaniment
to Karen’s heavy-dosed subject
matter. One we hope to bring
you more of in coming issues…
—
Page n° 21
Yassin Serghini
Photographer
¤
If we were to count all the
pictures ever published in The
Word, Yassin would probably
account for over half of them.
A long time friend and central
ingredient in The Word mix,
his potential is best used on
portraits, although his now
customary picture for The Shelf
is testament to his invaluable
versatility. For The Big Issue,
we asked him, amongst many
other things, to capture the curiously growing phenomenon of
female bodybuilding.
—
Pages n° 22, 23, 55, 56, 57, 82, 83
Rue au Beurre 24-26 I 1000 BRUXELLES I Tél : +32 2 511 95 98 I Fax : +32 2 511 47 48 I www.degreef1848.be I [email protected]
12
THE SKY’S THE LIMIT ISSUE
THE DIARY
THE FIRSTS
13
The Next Few Weeks’
Agenda Fillers
Belgium ( 01 ¤ 09 )
Artists with
an Attitude
¤
Artist-philosopher
Loek Grootjans is invited for a
year-long residency as curator
of Brussels’ Locuslux Gallery
and its “...Stands for Attitude”
show. Using as a premise that
the idea of ‘the innocent eye’
ceased to exist a long time ago,
a trilogy of shows – Parallel
Movement, Causal Connection
and Finding Ways – is dreamt
up, bringing to the fore artists
who have the creative guts to add
substance – as opposed to noise
– to the already crowded artistic
landscape. With works by Maria
Rosen, Jonathan DeWinter and
Veronika Veit amongst others,
the show promises to be a breath
of fresh air marked by bouts of
thematic resonance.
“...Stands for Attitude”
À Until 21st June 2009
☞ Locuslux Gallery, Brussels
www.locuslux.com
03.
Picture
This
¤
The idea of ‘the
picturesque’ was closely associated to that of the quintessential
British landscape, complete
with its manicured gardens and
quaint village life, always perfect
matters to be immortalised
through paint on canvas. But
what exactly has ‘the picturesque’
grown into, and how is it used to
capture today’s modern landscapes? Can we still talk of ‘the
picturesque’ when depicting an
urban landscape or an industrial
one? How are artists interpreting the concept nowadays, and
what are the implications for the
ensuing narrative forced upon
us, the viewer? All these are
topics touched upon in S.M.A.K’s
exhibition which draws upon
works by photographers Goiris
and Kempenaers amongst others.
01.
© Wolfgang Ellen Rieder
01.
02.
Beyond the Picturesque
À Until 23rd August 2009
☞ S.M.A.K, Ghent
www.smak.be
¤
Clothing has always
contributed towards shaping
socio-cultural identities yet it
has, for the most part, continued
to be viewed, and worn, in a
purely functional and necessary
manner, resisting until recently
most forms of artistic parallelism. This is the leading subject
of Iselp’s summer show, which
draws upon the work of several
artists to explore how they use
clothing in their continuous
(constructive) criticism of the
world they live in. With regular
Word contributor Jennifer
Defays’ By-product project
(originated by Manon Santkin
and Leslie Mannes) showing its
“By-product 5” video, this guarantees to have all you conceptcraving culture vultures some
food for thought.
¤
For the first solo
exhibition of his work to be
shown in Brussels, Luc Tuymans
has created 20 new paintings especially for Wiels. A
continuation of his triptych
that began with Les Revenants
(documenting the power of the
Jesuit Order) and Forever. The
Management of Magic (on
Disney’s influence), his new
works delve into the world of
reality shows. Seen through
the eye of this masterful, realist
painter, we are given a personal
narrative through which we can
attempt to make sense of manipulated imagery and illusions
through his simplified brush
stroke. An absolute essential on
the summer calendar.
Dress Code
À Until 25th July 2009
☞ Iselp, Brussels
Luc Tuymans – Against the Day
À Until 2nd August 2009
☞ Wiels, Brussels
www.iselp.be
www.wiels.org
Exclusively
for You
03.
© Goiris
04.
©Marie-Paule Stokart
Clothes
Contact
04.
© Luc Tuymans
02.
14
THE SUPERSIZED ISSUE
© Evan Holloway
05.
06.
THE DIARY
05.
Coastal
Pride
¤
From the beginning
of March until the end of October,
artists from all walks of life,
hailing from all over the world,
descend upon the Belgian coastline in a bid to transform it into
one giant playground for contemporary art. Drawing upon several
coastal cities’ history, heritage and
residents, artists initiate dialogue
with such works as a gigantic net,
a makeshift intimate room on the
beach and even an amphitheatre
in the dunes. Focusing specifically on the relationship between
architecture and sculpture, this
one is sure to couple our need for
outdoor activity with our cultural
cravings. Make sure to also catch
its Beaufort Inside satellite show,
immersing itself further yet in
coastal life and its relationship
to art.
Beaufort 03 – Triennial for
Contemporary Art by the Sea
À Until 4th October 2009
☞ Belgian Seaside
07.
Consume &
Conquer?
¤
Some exhibitions
make us want to pick up a paint
brush or camera, others stimulate our thinking and force us
to reflect and check ourselves.
Erna Hécey’s exhibition tilts
more towards the latter. Indeed,
its summer show seeks to invoke
a resolutely skeptic frame of
mind when considering our
consumption-craved generation,
and the extent to which it identifies itself through what it buys.
The show acts as a thought-off
response to the pre-dominance
of the neo-liberal economic
model and gives a good kicking
to supposedly tried-andtested ways. Euphoric it is not,
grounded it most defi nitely is.
Welcomingly timely.
Market Forces
À From 23rd May
until 8 th August 2009
☞ Erna Hécey Gallery, Brussels
www.ernahecey.com
www.beaufort03.be
© Masao Yamamoto
08.
06.
© Zoe Sheehan Saldana
07.
© Misha Gordin
08.
Painted
Visuals
¤
We love everything
yellow-tinted, slightly frail and
rugged here at Word HQ, and
Masao Yamamoto’s work fits
the bill perfectly. The Japanese
photographer focuses his lens on
sudden encounters and mysterious phenomena (a deserted
beach, a hand holding a flower up
in the air), expertly bringing out
an eerie, sometimes enchanted,
world of dreams and memories.
Clearly visible his subject matters
are not, but that is exactly what
makes the strength of his work:
a standardised imperfection,
natural blurriness and nearritualistic self-effacing aesthetic.
The first solo show given to
Yamamoto at Antwerp’s Gallery
Fifty One, we’ve already pencilled this one in our agendas.
Masao Yamamoto – Kawa
☞ Fifty One Fine Art Gallery,
Antwerp
www.gallery51.com
‘til Death
Do Us Part
¤
Latvian-born
Gordin’s work sits on the cusp
between art and science, such
is his ability to conceptualise
and push the boundaries further
yet in the world of art photography. Using a complex, if not
slightly archaic, post-production
method of photographing each
subject matter separately, then
cutting them out and juxtaposing and re-photographing them,
the artists did then (late 60s) by
hand what most photographers
do with their Macs today. His
work heavily referencing birth,
life and death, his photographs
are infused with a consequently
somber aesthetic: sometimes
sinister but always beautiful.
One we’re eager to see.
Misha Gordin
À From 4th June
until 28 th June 2009
☞ Espace Art 22, Brussels
www.espace-art22.com
THE NEXT FEW WEEKS' AGENDA FILLERS
THE FIRSTS
15
United Kingdom ( 10 ¤ 16 )
Another Kind
of Genius
¤
Sergei Eisenstein
is widely celebrated for his
directing career, producing such
memorable and cult pictures as
Battleship Potemkin and Ivan
The Terrible. Other aspects of
his works are less known, and
this is the basis for Extra City’s
exhibition, which mainly uses
as starting point the drawings
the artist made during his stay
in Mexico in the 1930s. Laced
with heavy meaning and deeply
researched, the drawings are
further proof of Eisenstein’s
undertones of intellectualism as
exemplified by his study of the
historical relationship between
rationality, sensual thought and
image. Other works on show
include his now infamous ¡Que
viva Mexico! fi lm.
09.
10.
Rewarding
Design
¤
The world’s most
remarkable and progressive
designs from seven categories
(architecture, fashion, furniture, graphic design, interactive, product and transport)
are currently on display at the
Design Museum. These are the
91 shortlisted pieces chosen
by a panel of experts, seven of
which were chosen as fi nalists
in the battle for the 2009 Brit
Insurance Design of the Year
Award. One entrant from each
category went through, chosen
by a panel that included Alan
Yentob and architect Peter
Cook. After much debate, and
in a clear populist act of wanting
to draw in the crowds, Shepard
Fairey’s Barack Obama Poster,
USA was the clear favourite and
winner of the award. (CH)
© Sergei Eisenstein
09.
10.
Sergei Eisenstein –
The Mexican Drawings
☞ Extra City Centre for
Contemporary Art, Antwerp
Brit Insurance Design Awards
À Until 14th June 2009
☞ Design Museum, London
www.designmuseum.org
www.extracity.org
11.
The Big Hitters
– Grand Dame of the French
contemporary art scene is given
her first solo show at Brussels’
Bozar. The show will present
Calle’s many works, with a special
focus on her autobiographical
performances.
© Sheppard Fairey
¤ Sophie Calle
from 27th May
until 13th September 2009
@ Bozar
11.
– Based in Brussels, this
American lithographer-comegeometrician shows a new sculpture holding up letters spelling
out In Place as well as one of his
now-infamous pocket sized books
at Hermès’ backroom gallery
space. (Boulevard de Waterloo
50 Waterloolaan, 1000 Brussels)
© Richard Caspole, Yale Centre for British Arts
¤ Peter Downsbrough
until 27th June 2009
@ La Verrière
Complete
Works
¤
When we think of
British artist John Constable we
think landscapes, quaint rural
scenes and the Hay Wain. But
Constable also excelled in portraiture, an area that this exhibition so deservedly focuses on.
Covering his work over thirty
years and bringing together over
fifty pieces, his skill in capturing personalities and likenesses
on canvas is highlighted. A mix
of self-portraits, drawings and
paintings of family and friends
gives an insight into his social
circle, the environment he lived
in and the influences he came
under, as well as showing the
provincial middle and upper
classes of the 19th century. (CH)
Constable Portraits:
The Painter and His Circle
À Until 14th June 2009
☞ National Portrait Gallery,
London
www.npg.org.uk
16
THE TITANIC ISSUE
© Wien Museum
13.
14.
THE DIARY
13.
© Isa Genzken
© Michael Raedecker
Mood
Board
¤
London-based artist
Michael Raedecker uses thread
and paint to create his inimitably moody works, reinventing
genres from the past including
landscapes, ruins and flower
paintings. Rapt by the potential
and confi nes of the medium
he uses, Raedecker references
flowers, cakes, lace, food and
more, sourcing images from
second hand books, magazines,
fi lm stills and photographs.
Creating his own new drawings and transferring them onto
canvas, he builds up the works
with paint and different types of
thread and wool, instilling his
works with a strange familiarity
and dreamlike quality you won’t
fail to be moved by. (CH)
Madness & Modernity
À Until 28 th June 2009
☞ Wellcome Collection, London
Michael Raedecker: line-up
☞ Camden Arts Centre, London
www.wellcomecollection.org
www.camdenartscentre.org
The Place
to Be
¤
This East End
landmark and artistic hub has
reopened to somewhat mixed
reviews but is defi nitely worth
a visit. With an opening exhibition by German sculptor Isa
Genzken, fusing photography,
paint, architecture and found
objects into sculptural works,
an accompanying display of
Ursula Mayer’s mesmerising
fi lms and more, the Whitechapel
is certainly covering a whole
spectrum of mediums. This,
coupled with the new interior
design by Belgian architects
Robbrecht&Daem, the new
facade and quirky weathervane designed and executed
by Canadian artist Rodney
Graham, makes this a ‘must see’
for any visitor to London. (CH)
16.
Isa Genzken: Open, Sesame!
☞ Whitechapel Gallery, London
www.whitechapelgallery.org
© Crimella
15.
¤
Modernism boomed
in Vienna at the start of the
20th century when Freud and
his contemporaries put forward
new and groundbreaking ideas
about the mind, and the arts
were really taking off. The city
became preoccupied with ideas
about mental health fused with
fears about the modern city and
how it would develop. This led
to a quick progression in psychiatric care and the symbiosis of
madness with art, the results of
which are here exhibited. From
designs for utopian psychiatric
hospitals and spaces to drawings of the patients confi ned in
them, the influence of psychiatry
on early modernism is clearly
highlighted. (CH)
14.
15.
Boom
Time
16.
Archival
Treasure
¤
The development
of Italian modernist architecture and how it was recorded
and influenced by photography in the early 20th century
is examined in this collection
of over 100 period photographs taken from the RIBA’s
British Architectural Library
Photographs Collection, one of
the most superb and thorough
archives in its field. Works by
some of the period’s most dazzling practitioners are on show
in photographic form, including those by Pier Luigi Nervi,
Giuseppe Terragni and Renzo
Piano. (CH)
Framing Modernism:
Architecture and Photography
in Italy 1926-1965
☞ Estorick Collection, London
www.estorickcollection.com
THE NEXT FEW WEEKS' AGENDA FILLERS
THE FIRSTS
Holland ( 17 ¤ 18 )
France
Great
Minds
¤
The Fringe Project
at the Zeeuws Museum is the
conclusive exhibition of a tenpart project by two Scandinavian
multitalents, Danish fashion
designer and Trentemöller
drummer Henrik Vibskov
and Swedish graphic designer
Andreas Emenius. The hair
fringe was taken as the nucleus
for all the works, but the name
also points at the fringes or
margins of their other activities. The ten mini-projects have
given a make-over to the museum
by mixing in with the in-house
collection, arresting both staff
and visitors with unexpected
sights. The ‘Soulwash’, a live
body-wash installation with big
fringes, is the last creation of the
project, and main draw to the
exhibition if you ask us. (KVG)
17.
19.
18.
NY Perspectives
À From 14th May
until 23 rd August 2009
☞ Foam, Amsterdam
www.foam.nl
19.
© Calder Foundation
To celebrate New
York and Amsterdam’s historical
coming together 400 years ago,
Foam does its part to commemorate the discovery of the island
of Manhattan with its exhibition “NY Perspectives”. Within
this context, the gallery has
commissioned four New York
photographers – Gus Powell,
Carl Wooley, Richard Rothman
and Joshua Lutz - to focus their
lenses on Amsterdam, with each
one given a specific aspect of the
city to explore: the street, the
night, the water or the outskirts.
Set to open the second week of
May, the exhibition promises to
give viewers a fresh and uncompromised-by-local-subjectivities
perspective of the city and its
inconspicuousness.
¤
20.
20.
© Agathe Snow
Celebratory
Times
www.centrepompidou.fr
© Carl Wooley
18.
Space
Sculptures
Alexander Calder –
The Parisian Years, 1926 -1933
À Until 20 th July 2009
☞ Centre Pompidou, Paris
Henrik Vibskov/Andreas
Emenius - The Fringe Projects
☞ Zeeuws Museum, Middelburg
www.zeeuwsmuseum.nl
( 19 ¤ 21 )
¤
Alexander Calder
was best known for his innovative
and daring take on 20th century
sculpture, or ‘mobile’, as it was
then named by Marcel Duchamp.
These often monumental
structures – large skeletons of
painted metal – are testament
to his massive contribution to
the very public appreciation of
art in France. Fun-filled and
simplistic, his work often exuded
a welcome light-heartedness and
entertaining quality, testament
of the artists’ lively and engaging
character. With Calder’s exceptional ‘Circus’ leaving New York
for the first time since his death,
the exhibition is an exhaustive
and well-rounded show focusing
for the most part on the Parisian
years of the artist’s life.
© Henrik Vibskov & Andreas Emenius
17.
17
Conflict
of Interest
¤
Agathe Snow,
a Corsica-born, New Yorkbased artist, threads the fine line
between artist and activist, her
work deeply referential to the
modern-day woes of our planet.
Constructing narratives based
on concepts of environmental
collapse, sexual dysfunction, religious or moral decay and physical disorientation, she contrasts
visions of horror with suggestions
for celebrations and survival. For
her exhibition at Jeu de Paume,
she creates an arresting installation linking the mezzanine to
the basement whilst also forming
a space dedicated to ideas and
thoughts in a determined bid to
stimulate rebirth. An engaging
and thought-provoking affair not
to be missed.
Agathe Snow – “Views
from the Top, Vertigo and
Constellations”
☞ Jeu de Paume, Paris
www.jeudepaume.org
18
THE JUMBO ISSUE
Elle
Dessine
¤
Soledad Bravi shot
to prominence as the in-house
illustrator for French Elle magazine. Her pencil-touch gracing
the pages of near-every issue,
her characters’ lives played
out for every reader to see.
A slightly more simplistic and
approachable style than most,
Soledad – who also publishes
picture books for children –
inhabits a world of feminine
cuteness and puerile innocence
with sometimes brutal honesty.
Her exhibition at Colette will
mark the fi rst time her series of
illustrations “Les Paresseuses
pour Monoprix” will go on sale.
Considering the Paris imprint’s
knack of turning everything into
a collectable, we strongly recommend picking up a print or two.
21.
Concert Picks
¤ Ghostface Killah
on 18th May 2009
@ L’Ancienne Belgique, Brussels.
– We’d be damned if we missed
this one, if only to reminisce over
our teenage years spent trying
to memorise this killer-tongued
Staten Island MC’s metaphorlaced bars.
© Soledad Bravi
21.
THE DIARY
Soledad Bravi
À Until 30 th May 2009
☞ Colette, Paris
www.colette.fr
¤ Dan Auerbach
on 22nd May 2009
– Slightly more bluesy and wallowing than when fronting The
Black Keys, Auerbach’s solo
effort is quite simply spine shivering. Do not miss this under any
circumstances.
¤ Jarvis
on 6th June 2009
– Unoffi cial poster boy for the
Britpop movement with his now
defunct band Pulp, Jarvis Cocker
has blossomed into a solo artist
in his own right, with his yetuntitled second album set to hit
music stands in May.
What We’re Giving Away
¤
Sabre Sunglasses
Gearing up for the summer, we have one pair of Sabre sunglasses to give away (see page 41). The fi rst person to send an email to
[email protected], stating ‘Give Me My Sabre’ in the subject line and your full name and address in the body of the email
will win the pair of shades.
Ghostface Killah at L’ Ancienne Belgique on 18th May 2009.
nd
¤ Dan Auerbach at L’ Ancienne Belgique on 22 May 2009.
th
¤ Jarvis at L’ Ancienne Belgique on 6 June 2009.
¤
What you need to do.
Send an email to [email protected], specifying which concert you wish to go to in the subject line.
The first readers to do so will each win a pair of tickets to the concert of their choice.
Conditions.
Until tickets last. Applies to Belgium only. Normal conditions apply.
Symfonie.orkest.vlaanderen
Season. 2009 . 2010
concerts.
For more information have a look at
www.symfonieorkest.be
Met steun van de
Vlaamse minister van Cultuur,
Jeugd, Sport en
Brussel
Brussels.
Palais des Beaux-Arts.
THE
BIG
PAPERS
20
THE HUMONGOUS ISSUE
THE BIG PAPERS
— We’re surprised we managed to make them fit on
one page, such was the largess of this month’s Papers’
protagonists. We pump iron with Belgium’s pre-eminent
female body-builder, float computing theories about the
web’s use of virtual bandwidths and get an enthousiastic
guided tour of Europe’s first ever eco-constructed retail
emporium – right here in our capital.
Writers Karen van Godstenhoven,
Nicholas Lewis and Randa Wazen
BELGIUM
21
idea of ownership. The fi rst good thing about
the cloud is that, although sold as a commercial
utility, its roots lie in the Open Source mentality, where resources are shared for the greater
collective good. The flexible structure makes
the data bunch more manageable and safer
than a monolithic structure. Put simply, if one
computer fails, it won’t screw the cloud. That
way, the cloud is safer than your hard drive.
Other positive aspects of the cloud are both
ecologic and economic: it is green because it
doesn’t leave idle computers running and all
resources are used to full capacity. The economic advantage of this is that companies and
end-users don’t have to buy all their hardware
for themselves, but can subscribe to shared
cloud services, cutting down hardware costs.
What is more, the cloud globalises the net even
further: you can access it from anywhere. A
useful principle for mobile applications: your
smart phone won’t have to do all the processing
of pictures or music itself, but can access the
cloud instead, so heavier programs can run on
your lightweight device. Think of GPS-based
applications: who wouldn’t want to see their
surroundings on Google streetview screened
via their iPhone whilst walking the city?
Nevertheless, the cloud has at least two Big
Issues standing in the way of global adoption:
legal and privacy issues. Whereas the fi rst
one is generally applicable to the whole net
(there is still no Global Data Act), the second
one is more philosophical: Richard Stallman,
founder of the Open Source UNIX GNU
foundation, warns against putting your data
in the hands of commercial vendors: “It’s
worse than stupidity, it’s a marketing hype
campaign. Computer users should be keen
to keep their information in their own hands,
rather than hand it over to a third party.” At
this stage it is indeed worth remembering that
Google’s ‘free services’ for storing documents,
pictures and work are used for advertisement
profiling and analysing usage data. Stallman,
a heartfelt privacy advocate, advises users to
stay local and stick with their own computers.
He links the ‘loss of control’ over your data to
the same loss of control seen when using proprietary software, because it makes the user
defenseless, trusting his PC life into the hands
of a far-flung cloud fiend who developed the
software. The Word’s wise words? Read the
small print, no matter how boring and keep
your data stored online as well as offl ine. A fire
is just as likely to happen at your house as well
as in Silicon Valley, so with multiple backups
you’re better safe than sorry. (KVG)
© Virassamy
RIDERS ON THE CLOUD
Riders on
the Cloud
Cloud computing, the latest tech land
buzzword, is similar to an exponentiallyexpanding version of the web: it is based on
a gigantic network of loosely-interlocked
supercomputers that work together, spreading
tasks out over different machines that all work
in a distributed way. This heavy computing
only used to be necessary for rocket scientists
but nowadays, the cloud holds much more far
reaching implications about the way we use
the net, and to a certain extent might even
influence the way we regard digital property
in the future. Consider this: your daily web
applications like Flickr, Last Fm, Google
Docs and even good-old webmails all store
your data on servers in places you don’t know
about, yet you seemingly trust them to keep
everything safely stored. Imagine if one of
them stopped their services tomorrow and
you’d lose all your treasured content?
Cloud computing makes computer power
and storage a utility, like gas and electricity,
with no real owner, thus further disrupting the
22
THE HULKING ISSUE
THE BIG PAPERS
Before becoming an actor and the 38th governor of California, Arnold Scharzenegger was
one of the fi rst European professional bodybuilders. A seven time Mr Olympia winner,
he remains one of the most influential figures
in this field. And whilst many argue that
bodybuilding is not a sport, the International
Federation of Bodybuilders (IFBB) was
granted a “recognised federation” status by
the Olympic Committee in 1998, although
no one seems to know when we’ll actually see
bodybuilders flex their muscles in an Olympic
stadium. It all comes down to the controversy
surrounding this activity…
Fabi Antoine, Belgium’s fi rst professional
female bodybuilder and two-time world champion, admits she used to despise bodybuilders she saw at the gym, poking fun at what she
labelled “vain guys pumping iron with vacant
aims.” It’s hard to imagine that this imposing 1m76 blonde, weighing 80 kilos, used
to be a skinny ballet dancer as a kid. Once a
teenager, she moved on to judo and various
martial arts. Her goals reached, she felt ready
for a new challenge. A regular at her gym, she
was signed up to a bodybuilding contest, and
began working out more seriously. Little did
she know she would be instantly compelled
by this sport she used to fi nd grotesque.
“What I loved most is the extreme discipline
it requires. More than a passion, a sport or a
job, bodybuilding is a state of mind. One that
I’m in day and night, seven days a week.” Her
favourite moment is the preparation period,
eight to twelve weeks prior to a competition,
because it is unbelievably intense. She jokes
about her daily routine being quite repetitive,
“all I do is train, eat and sleep!.” But those
are the very foundations of successful bodybuilding. Many hours of rest are primordial
to allow muscle hypertrophy, the meals are
weighed to the gram and the training must be
effective yet never overdone.
A rather safe sport, the main dangers of
bodybuilding come from drug use, a big taboo
and major player in the activity’s bad rep. Fabi
understands this cliché, acknowledging the
impression of sheer excessiveness this discipline can give. “At fi rst, even I thought that
bodybuilders were all on steroids. That said,
if it was that easy to stick a needle in you butt
cheek and become a champion, there would
be champions everywhere… And as tempting
as it may be, I’m positive about the fact that
the ones who are using are not the ones you’ll
see during contests, because it demands more
than that.” According to her, the core of this
© Yassin Serghini
Pump,
Pump it up
misconception lies in visibility. “Cyclists or
even pro ping pong players might use as much
- if not more - than bodybuilders, yet no one
suspects them because it’s less obvious.” The
evolution of bodybuilding is incredibly striking when you compare pictures of early icons
like Eugene Sandow to todays over infl ated
and freakishly huge champs like Ronnie
Coleman or Markus Ruhl. Thankfully,
the higher authorities of the International
Federation of Bodybuilders are examining
the question in order to re-evaluate certain
standards. “There are defi nitely new trends
emerging, leaning towards a more retro look,
harmonious silhouettes and focusing on
healthy proportions.” Fabi sounds relieved
by this since it might help revamp the sport’s
tarnished image and allow it to seem more
accessible. Yet it seems pretty ironic that even
in a field where “bigger is better” appears to
be the ultimate leitmotiv, there might actually
be such a thing as ‘too big’… (RW)
THE CRANE BROTHERS
BELGIUM
23
With its motto of 'nothing too heavy, nothing
too high', Sarens NV has taken the art of
heavyweight lifting and construction to
new heights with its sky-teasing cranes. The
Word talked to two of the third-generation
big wigs: Hendrik Sarens (Director Heavy
Lift Department) and Jan Sarens (Director for
South-America). Although employing over
2,000 people across the world, the company
from Wolvertem is still a family-run affair.
Grandfather Sarens, wanting to improve the
standard of living for his twelve children in the
1940s, started to deforest woods in Wallonia
with renowned Brabant labour horses dragging the wood over land. When his sturdy
horses weren’t doing the trick anymore, he
invested the family’s money in a fi rst crane.
And that's how all his sons and daughters
became involved in the family business.
Sarens became something of a de-facto
national builder, assisting with the construction
of the Atomium, growing into a top global player
in the 90s under the wings of the educated and
entrepreneurial third generation. The company
now holds a world record for heavyweight lifting
(a 14,000 tonne platform in Norway) and possesses the world’s largest crawler crane (which at
a dizzying height of 220 meters affords a lifting
capacity of 2,000 tonnes). They also recently
lifted windmills for the Thornton riff’s windmill park in the North Sea. Says Hendrik: “This
one we’re especially proud of, because we work so
much abroad, but now we get to do a large and
prestigious project in Belgian waters. We placed
six of the largest windmills in the sea, and this
will be extended to 60 windmills, creating energy
for 600 000 people.”
Safety issues are of paramount importance:
“Human lives come before anything else, we
are not just interested in building everything
in the fastest possible way. If an operator
notices some unsafe procedures, he can call in
a ‘Hold Procedure’, stop the works and make
sure safety rules are applied. Even in a country
with lower safety norms, we apply our Belgian
rules. The same holds for our training centers
in Thailand, South-Africa, the UK, MiddleEast: the Belgian standard is maintained”
says Hendrik. “I’d like to add to that that we
should be more proud of our Belgitude,” adds
Jan, “We are well-appreciated abroad and
shouldn’t shy away from that.”
Current big projects include building a
power station on the biggest building site in
the world (in Neurath, Germany), constructing
the FIFA world cup accommodation in South
Africa and building a nickel mine in New
© Yassin Serghini
The Crane
Brothers
Sarens’ Director Heavy Lift Department Hendrik Sarens
Caledonia, which is exactly on the other side
of the planet. Sarens projects mostly involve
the oil, gas and energy sectors, so they’ll keep
busy the following years.
They made it big, without being big-headed: “Oh, we still work with trees you know:
in January, a protected fi g tree in Brussels
had to be relocated before normal construction works could start” says Jan. Indeed,
no project is too big or small for these guys,
thanks to a no-nonsense and hard-working
attitude. Hendrik: “That’s why we are all in
the executive board but we have several non
family directors, each of them specialists
in their profession.” When asked about the
two other big business families in the area,
Inbev-owners family De Spoelberch, and
dredging champion Jan De Nul, Jan Sarens
replies: “The entrepreneurial spirit might be
entrenched in the ground here, but it’s probably the region’s beer that makes us want to
do Big Things.” We dig that. (KVG)
The Facts
Incorporated In
1955
Annual Turnover
€386.000.000 (2008)
Company Turning Point
Going to a European market in the
80s and becoming a world player
by the year 2000
Size of Crane Fleet
1,248 cranes
(as off 1st March 2009)
24
THE SUSTAINABLE ISSUE
THE BIG PAPERS
Rarely does a real estate development command
such admiration, inspiration and, let’s face
it, (green) envy. Incepted about five years
ago by the powers-that-be at Belgian imprint
Cameleon – a members’ only stock clearance
specialist enticing customers to buy past collections in the comfort of private sales –, their new
Woluwe outpost screams tree-huggers all over,
from the bee hives up on the roof to the locallysourced wood used for the outer paneling. “We
made a conscious decision to push the bar high”
says Augustin Wigny, who heads Cameleon
together with business partner Jean Cédric van
der Belen. Developed by Awaa (cwarchitects)
in partnership with Leuven’s University and
its Matriciel offspin, the building is a prime
example of thinking-before-doing, a common
sense project. For example, orientation of
the building was crucial, with rooms needing
heating sitting on the building’s Southern or
Eastern tips. Putting the dramatic staircase –
a falling torrent of natural light - at the centre
of the store was also pivotal in ensuring customers actually used the stairs. Furthermore,
© Cameleon
Green
with a Big G.
the building is extremely isolated and affords
a natural ventilation system (simply, leaving
windows open at night) thus eliminating highenergy-consuming heating and ventilation
systems. And this only is at the surface of it.
Plants were chosen for their ability to attract
butterfl ies whose neighbourhood stock was
diminishing. The Samsung screens were selected because of their Greenpeace endorsement.
And all seats, lounge chairs and tables were
picked up from antique shops around Brussels’
flea market. Setting aside the obvious “wow”
effect in injecting some sexiness into the green
paradigm, this is one initiative set to become
the blueprint for many more to come. (NL)
large because of the crisis. Lieve Duprez from
the Port Authority denies this though: “This
is our average amount of cars being stored,
there’s nothing special about the number.
Car sales still rose in 2008, so it's normal that
we’re at near-maximum capacity. Besides, the
general time of standstill is about two weeks,
and never more than three.” So no issues of
rusty iron, the sea salt eating away the engine
or rogues shattering the cars? “No,” says Lieve,
“we have special garages on site where the cars
are maintained in the Pre Delivery Inspection
and made ready for sale. The special options
for your car are assembled here. This brings
a lot of jobs to the port, other than the port
activities in themselves.” (KVG)
Cameleon Woluwe
Avenue Ariane 15 Arianelaan — 1200 Brussels
Although Antwerp is home to one of the
largest port businesses in the world, it is the
port of Zeebruges that boasts the largest car
park in the world: on a yearly basis, 2,126
million cars are stored, maintained and delivered from its dock, more so than at Europe's
two giant car ports, Bremerhaven in Germany
and Rotterdam in Holland. This implies that
one in 10 cars sold in Europe pass through
Zeebruges’ enclaves. The parking site measures 300 hectares and seems to stretch on
beyond the horizon. It is the best route into
West-European midlands for car dealers, lying
on the most central axe for them to ship from:
eastern, northern and southern European
markets are ideally situated. Asian car dealers
such as Toyota and Suzuki are particularly
fond of Zeebruges, with Mazda joining them
in April this year. Recently, the carpark got in
the press because it was alleged that the amount
of cars being held (175,000) was actually so
© Hans Snijkers, La Compania
Dude,
Where’s
my Car ?
THE GUIDE
BELGIUM
25
Yo Mama
is so Fat…
…she doesn’t need the internet,
she’s already world wide
…that when she wears her
yelllow coat people yell “Taxi!”
" She grabbed
a bag of
Cheese Corn
and a soda pop "
The Pharcyde
…she sat on a rainbow and
skittles popped out
…i took a picture of her last
Christmas and it’s still printing
…she sat on a quarter and
pennies popped out
…she fell off a boat and the
captain yelled “Land Ho!”
…the back of her neck looks
like a pack of hot dogs
…she stepped on the scale and
it said “to be continued”
…she puts Wall-Mart out of
business
… her blood type is gravy!
———————
A4 moment of humouristic fatness brought to you by graphic design bureau kòtje.
26
THE DIVA ISSUE
THE INSTITUTION
The Mad
Barber
— Yvan David is a flamboyant, larger than life hairdresser, a self-style
madman who leads an outrageous lifestyle. One of the capital’s true icons,
his infamous salon’s would see prostitutes mingle with lawyers. Now
officially retired, he shares some memories with us.
© Ulrike Biets
Writer Randa Wazen
Living it up Large: Yvan David
If you see Yvan David for the fi rst time,
chances are you will be taken aback, if not
plain scared. Midway between plastic surgery
train wreck Jocelyn Wildenstein and the Lion
King, his very tall and thin body is covered
in tattoos and he sports a wild and massive
mane. Despite his age – he is sixty one - he’s
had so much surgery done that he has virtually
become ageless. But all it takes is one smile for
his face to lighten up, beaming with a radiant
personality that oozes genuine kindness. For
as far as he can remember, he has always led his
life with excessiveness and over the top-ness. “I
am extreme regarding everything. Be it friendship, love, or myself. I’m not sure whether it’s a
blessing or a curse, but that’s who I am.”
From Rags to Glitter
Born in Schaerbeek in a modest family to say
the least, he dreamt of becoming a florist, a
dancer or a hairdresser. His parents were too
poor to send him to a specialised school so
he started working at his uncle’s salon at the
tender age of 13. Learning everything from
scratch, This autodidact was running his own
salon by the time he reached 19. He set up
shop in the capital’s various neighbourhoods
but his ‘piece de résistance’ was the one located
near the Bourse area, that he ran for 24 years
and proudly refers to as “the most beautiful
hair salon of Brussels.” First named Yvan, he
quickly changed the name to David, a tribute
to Bowie, whom he was madly in love with.
His breakthrough came in 1987, when
Charlotte Rampling fell in love with his exuberant style on the set of Mascara, a movie
directed by Patrick Conrad. He joined the
crew by pure luck, after being asked to fi nd
transsexuals, transvestites and gays to appear
in the feature. So he rounded about 40 of
them and did their hair, but was warned not to
approach the famous actress because her army
of fancy makeup artists and stylists from Paris
had been brought on location. It was only at
the wrap party that he was introduced to her,
and she was instantly charmed. After sending
her styling team packing, she requested that
Yvan does her hair. “We got along really well,
because I knew exactly how to handle her from
the start. I didn’t have to tell her that she was
beautiful or talented.” David has run his
fi ngers through the locks of more than 150
celebrities, from Céline Dion, David Bowie,
Fergie and Vaya Con Dios to models and
burlesque dancers of Paris’ Lido, but remains
very humble about it. “I’m extremely proud and
happy to have had the opportunity to work with
such amazing artists, but I do not like the ‘celebrity hairstylist’ tag. A cleaning lady means as
much to me as a chart topping pop star.”
Life in the star system was not exactly his
cup of tea, as he eventually had to resort to
seeing a psychiatrist. “After a while I was
wondering why I wasn’t the one being asked
for an autograph. It took me years of analysis
to accept the fact that I am Yvan David and
that’s as good as it gets.” He realises with hindsight that he wouldn’t trade places with them
for anything in the world. “Famous people live
in such a fake environment, surrounded by
two-faced phonies. At the end of the day, they
are extremely lonely.” In a world full of hypocrites, it’s no surprise that what set David apart
was his honesty and authenticity.
“All my Clients are Nutcases”
Customers who went to David’s salon could
expect much more than a haircut… A social
experience for starters. “What was great is
that all sorts of people came by. No matter
their background, all my clients are nutcases.
I don’t know why but I seem to attract them.
They felt free to unleash their madness in my
presence.” The chaotic atmosphere of this
melting pot seemed to be exactly what David
loved, since he never wanted to run an uptight
business. The idea was for everyone to chat
together and he put a lot of effort in making
them feel at ease in his eclectic environment.
“When people came to me, I wanted them
to enjoy a truly delightful moment and have
loads of fun. Instead of calming things down,
I excited them even more! Knowing that I was
able to make their day is the most rewarding.”
Making it no secret that he is a huge plastic
surgery fan, David has had three lifting’s, his
eyes, nose and mouth done five times each and
a liposuction - although he admits that was
an unnecessary intervention given his skinny
frame and only went under the knife “because
it was a birthday present.” He often gives
advice to his customers about their appearance,
but always in a respectful way. “If someone is
comfortable living with an ugly nose, I totally
accept it. But I believe it is my duty to offer
my clients some suggestions as to how they
could improve their looks.” His best friend is
Muriel Greuse, a renowned plastic surgeon,
and David states with pride that he has brought
her more than 75 percent of her customer base
through his guidance. He also sent his clients
to see psychics, confirming one crucial aspect
of his job: that a hairdresser’s role is often that
of a shrink. “All of my clients are in love with
me. I listen to them, and because I am so kind
and sincere, I tell them what their husbands
don’t. So they come back to receive all that
THE MAD BARBER
BELGIUM
love and honesty they have been longing for.”
Miche, one of his dearest friends over the last
30 years admits that he helped her gain confidence. “I feel good about myself ever since I
met him. We’ve gone through eras and crazy
styles together. I’m not afraid to say that
David changed my life.”
his twenties, wearing outrageous makeup that
would make even Laurence of Arabia look
like a nun in comparison, and jokes about how
he used to run errands that way. Sadly, not a
day goes by without him being insulted in the
street, yet he refuses to change, because that’s
who he is, and has been for the past 60 years.
A true eccentric at heart, his follies translate
into his daily life, making it sometimes hard to
keep up. “Living with me is not easy because
I am barking mad. Once I saw a transparent
tuxedo on TV. The next day I was off to Paris
to buy it. Words cannot describe the lunacy of
my nights out with friends. Sometimes I’ll call
my partner in the morning and tell him that
I’m at the hospital to get my face done and
he won’t see me before a week.” His partner,
whom he has been with for the past 24 years
and whom he recently married, is his complete
antithesis however.
Having closed his hair salon a year and a
half ago, David now receives a few clients;
mainly close friends and the occasional celebrity, in a small studio located downtown. He
had to give up his salon for financial reasons,
which pains him, and admits he has sunk into
a depression ever since. “I stepped out of the
spotlight and am back in the shadow. Most
of the time I am sad rather than happy. I miss
so many things - the animation, the laughter,
everything. Thankfully I have proper medication and my friends, but I sometimes fi nd
it hard to cope.” Well aware that he doesn’t
have many years left ahead of him, David has
set himself challenges, little things he always
dreamed of doing but never dared to. He also
regularly helps out the less fortunate in his
own way, collaborating with a centre by offering haircuts to those in need and pampering
them with the full VIP treatment. “I realise at
this point that I’m closer to death than to life.
But I want my time here to be fi lled with love,
sunshine and happiness. Life is tragic, but if
I can try to make it more joyful, then it’s not
that bad.” More than that, Yvan David has
managed to turn his life into a work of art so
rare and unique, it shines like a bright rainbow
in the greyscaled streets of Brussels.
Love him or Hate him
A walking paradox, a stark contrast exists
between the fiery image Yvan David projects
and his fragile inner persona. Extremely shy
and kind, he realises that he might have created
this outlandish appearance to reassure himself.
“I certainly have issues deep down inside”,
he confesses. Angels are a recurring theme
among his tattoos, as he strongly believes they
protected him during his life. Having suffered
a painful childhood, with alcoholic parents,
rapes and abuse, he quite astonishingly compares his troubled youth to the violence of
Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. But remarkably positive, he is not one to lament about his
misfortunes and feels immensely grateful for
the great opportunities life has given him. “In
46 years I never got bored or tired of my job.
Not many people can say the same.”
" What was great is that all
sorts of people came by.
No matter their
background, all my clients
are nutcases. I don’t
know why but I seem to
attract them. They felt
free to unleash their
madness in my presence "
Despite travelling all over the world, David’s
inner soul has always remained fi rmly rooted
in Brussels. A cult icon of the capital, many
compare him to the city’s well-known landmarks. He realises that Belgium is quite a conservative country style wise and even though
his look remains quite peculiar, he has downscaled it a bit. He shows me pictures of him in
27
28
THE POLITICAL ISSUE
THE ISSUE
Youth, Force,
Smarts & Unity
— Six young activists were selected as Global Changemakers from
around the world to attend the World Economic Forum earlier
this year in Davos. Aged between 16 and 19, they confidently
addressed rooms full of international policy makers, and held
meetings with Bill Clinton, Kofi Anan, Al Gore and Gordon
Brown. In the light of their experiences at Davos, we asked four
of the planet’s most switched-on teenagers to tell us what they
thought the big issues were right now.
Writer Hettie Judah
Illustration Jean-Biche
From Left to Right
Bill Clinton, Ohm Gore, Sarah Nkhoma, Kofi Annan,
Charlie Young, Elsabe Van Vuuren, James Chatepa,
Meeran Karim and Al Gore
01. For James Chatepa in Malawi,
the big issue is the complacency
underlying our refusal to seriously
tackle global crises.
I live in Malawi, the warm heart of Africa
but also one of the world’s poorest countries.
Deforestation runs rampant here.
There are several thousands of deaths annually as a result of AIDS and malaria. Over a
third of the population lives on less than $2.50
a day. Nonetheless, as people starve to death,
each year the politicians get richer.
So when asked what “The Big Issue” for me
is, I’m very tempted to point to the corruption
in my own country… but I believe that it goes
far deeper than that.
I believe that there’s a link between climate
change, the current global financial crisis and
even the disgusting levels of corruption in most
African countries. In fact, I believe that all the
major issues the world faces today are tied
YOUTH, FORCE, SMARTS & UNITY
LIFESTYLE
down to human irresponsibility and greed.
The current global fi nancial crisis was
caused, not only by risky and irresponsible
behaviour by the US fi nancial sector, but
from ordinary people, enslaved by consumerism, who wanted to buy more than they could
afford. Climate change has escalated as our
leaders for the past two decades have irresponsibly turned away and failed to address
it. Ordinary Africans continue to live in
poverty, decades after colonial rule, because
their leaders selfi shly cling to power and irresponsibly choose to fi ll their own pockets…
the problems are endless, but then again, so
are the solutions.
Man is an innovator who, throughout
history, has always refused to say no to what
was perceived as impossible: we built airplanes to cross the skies, we built vast ships to
cross the oceans and discover new lands, and
we even managed to put a man on the moon!
So I think that the big issue right now is
complacency. It’s an unwillingness to act that
has come from the realisation of how massive
our challenges are.
The world is hurting, so now is not the
time to procrastinate, neither is it the time to
isolate ourselves. We, as humans, need to rise
up to the challenges we’re facing because it’s
absolutely essential that we fi nd a common
ground, a common purpose to tackle the
world’s problems together, as we have done
in the past.
—
James (16) studies in Malawi but goes to
Huambo, Angola every long holiday to work
for a local NGO that raises youth awareness
and provides education on HIV/AIDS. He
also works for an NGO in Malawi that raises
awareness on HIV/AIDS through soccer
tournaments.
29
30
THE MAMMOTH ISSUE
02.For Charlie Young in the UK,
the big issue is the lack of effective
education and political thrust in the
face of climate change.
Climate change is not just an environmental
problem. It is a matter of human survival. The
collapse of the biosphere will fundamentally
change the way we live in so many ways it’s
unimaginable. If we continue as we are, all
the pressing issues of today will be amplified
until our society is overwhelmed.
Even though there is almost perfect scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change
I would say that around half of my peers are
still unsure whether climate change really
exists. Why is this? It has to be because the
media, as carriers of the message, aren’t doing
their job. The 99 percent of scientists who
believe in climate change should be getting 99
percent of the airtime and column inches on
this subject. But they’re not. The result is that
scepticism is rife and at this stage I fi nd that
depressing and incredibly dangerous.
When I understood the threat posed by
climate change it took over my life. I feel I can’t
just sit back and watch a horror show unfold
when I can do something about it. That’s why
a lot of my activism centres on education.
Education can shift the argument to what we
can do about the problem. We need a genuine
transfer of knowledge and information to
the people who will decide our future. In a
democracy, that’s supposed to be everybody.
Yet why would a government prioritise something that people care so little about?
Governments have not been idle on climate
change, but they haven’t acted with real energy
either. The UN Kyoto Protocol in 1992 was
the biggest piece of legislation since the UN
Human Rights Bill but as a way of reducing
harmful emissions it’s no better than a leaky
bucket. The UK Climate Change Bill decided
in December 2008, which will decide the fate
of my generation, looks to be similarly and
fatally inadequate.
At Davos I felt that many people in power,
in both government and industry, had a reasonable grasp of the threat posed by climate
change. However, their excuse for soft peddling the issue is a dismal lack of faith in
selling a harder line to voters and customers.
Time and again I was told that the necessary
practical solutions were not ‘politically feasible.’ We have to take this excuse away. We
will not get the climate deal we need without
public support for it. Those at the top won’t
do the right thing without a massive push.
—
Charlie (16) is an award-winning climate
change activist.
THE ISSUE
03.For Meeran Karim in Pakistan,
the big issue is a serious lack of
governmental transparency and free
press in her country, which has left
her unsure who to trust.
“19 die in bloody siege at Pakistan police
academy”
Headline from
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 30 th 2009, 1:05 PM
Yes, it may sound horrible to most people out
there, but living in Pakistan, I have watched
too many images of brutality.
Ceremonial shrouds are running out for the
dead. You may say that I have no sympathy,
but this is not the case, I simply have no faith in
the government or its supposed allies. There
were only two police guards in the aforementioned ‘bloody siege,’ guarding a police training centre, where 800 or so policemen were
ironically being trained against impending
terrorist attacks. In the attack that happened
on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team before
this siege, gunmen attacked Sri Lanka's team in
a gun and grenade assault in Lahore that killed
eight people including six police personnel
and wounded five members of the squad. Is it
just me, or is the government genuinely lazy or
deliberately being like this?
In a country where military expenditure
is invariably high and where American aid
buys the latest equipment for the army, how
can terrorists get away? They are too many
conspiracy theories circulating these days: is
Washington practicing coercive diplomacy in
Islamabad’s corridors of power? Or are there
too many other cooks spoiling the broth?
You see, after witnessing the utter mess military dictators and corrupt civilian politicians
have left us in routinely, I don’t know who to
believe in. Although, the Pakistani media
often gives us glimpses into the ground realities in many hostile areas of North Pakistan,
they are only glimpses. While many people
can propose solutions to problems such as
climate change and the global fi nancial crisis,
I don’t even understand the entire nature of
the problem facing my country. So I won’t
leave you with a high- sounding policy framework or solution, only glimpses and a sense of
confusion, which is all I get nowadays.
—
Meeran (18) is a student at the Lahore College
of Arts and Sciences in, Pakistan. In order to
encourage youth activism, she established a
youth parliament at her school. To help female
empowerment, she interned at an NGO that
provides legal aid to female victims of violence.
She attended her first protest at the age of 11.
04.For Elsabe van Vuuren in Namibia,
the big issues of today are all rooted
in our refusal to relate honestly to
one another.
I was born in 1991; one year after my country
Namibia became independent. The relationship between the South African government
and Namibia was not the best at that time.
Many countries in Africa walked the same
road; they fought for their independence. In
the process of stirring up revolt against colonial systems, they cultivated unnecessary hate in
the hearts of their people. To many, being independent means to have everything for yourself,
by yourself and in yourself. Even I once hoped
that Namibia would succeed in producing all
she needs within her own boundaries.
Now I understand the words a wise man
once said to me: “we cannot strive to be independent, since we will end up lonely and selfi sh,
greedy but poor. We will always be interdependent on one another and on others. A successful person is the one who risks to live, who
risks to have relationships with other people.”
Why is there a world economic crisis?
I don’t have all the answers, but I do know that
the lack of trust contributed greatly.
The pressing issue of HIV/AIDS, I believe,
is also a result of relationships gone wrong. In
an open relationship, partners will be honest
about their status. A healthy relationship
will leave room for NO. A true relationship
of love would not act merely out of self-gain
and lust. It would also not cast AIDS out of
the society and label it as dead.
If we fail in our relationships, we fail a
great part of our purpose. A family friend
once said: when all the money is gone and the
fame has calmed, when all the good things
you did for other people and all the time you
spend in training and education is lost. The
one thing that remains is your relationships
with other people, if you have any.
I have never envisioned a world in perfect
relation with each other, every country at
peace, all people happy; I have not, because
it is impossible.
In the same way I have never imagined
a world with no illness and no hospitals,
because I understand that this is equally
impossible. But every day thousands of
doctors, researchers, nurses, specialists and
educators fight for this goal. That is why I will
fight for better relationships. This is what I
am about. You need healthy relationships in
order to tackle issues.
—
Elsaabe (17) grew up with great aspirations
for her country Namibia and the continent of
Africa. She currently works on a number of
humanitarian projects.
THE SCREENING ROOM
LIFESTYLE
The Choice of Major Collections
WWW.CIEDESJARDINS.COM
1437, CHAUSSÉE DE WATERLOO (FORT JACO - PRINCE D’ORANGE) – 1180 BRUXELLES
TÉL: 02 375 72 39 – FAX: 02 375 74 46 – [email protected]
31
32
THE “OF CONSIDERABLE SIZE” ISSUE
THE WORD ON
Height
Differences
— You have those for whom it’s not an
issue, those who carry it with a chip on
their shoulder, those who actually find
it charming, and others who’d outright
punch you for simply joking about it. In
our continuing series on standout human
individualities, we turn our attention to
vertically-impaired duos and bring you the
six-pack to have won our hearts over.
Photography Sarah Eechaut
Tine Guns & Mathieu Vandekerckhove
Saleswoman and Teacher.
Been together for two years and eight months.
He is 27cm taller than she is.
Jokes they have to put up with: “Once someone said: ‘
Nice daughter sir.’”
What they Wish for: “A Pair of Free High Heels.”
HEIGHT DIFFERENCES
Peter Gansbeke & Elisabeth De Loore
Teacher and Student at the Antwerp Conservatorium.
Been together for two years.
She is 12cm taller than he is.
LIFESTYLE
Ruth Decouttere & Frederik Rigole
Ruth studies Medicine and Frederik Commercial Engineering,
both at KU Leuven.
Been together for three and a half years.
Jokes they have to put up with : “Were the tall guys sold-out?”
What they Wish for: “For our children to have Elisabeth's
musicality and size but my sense of humour.”
Jokes they have to put up with: “None really or
I’ll punch them in the face.”
What they Wish for: “Good luck with our fi nals and
a happy life together.”
33
34
THE GIANT ISSUE
THE WORD ON
Jan De Smet & Christelle Robeys
ICT expert for the Ministry of Finance and Physiotherapist.
Been mother and son for 31 years.
Sonny is 31cm taller than Mummy.
Suhua Yang & Geert Vandewalle
Illustration Student at Hogent & Psychology Student at Howest Brugge.
Been (happily) together since October 2007.
Jokes they have to put up with: “How's the weather up there? Upon
which I ask them to stand up when they are talking to me.”
What She Wishes for: “Physically, I wish I was a little bit taller. In
general: meeting Cocorosie, getting rich, and owning a house with
Geert…”
What they Wish for: “World peace! To live happily ever after!”
What He Wishes for: “Physically: more muscles, I would like to be
the most handsome guy in the world (laughs). In general, being a
millionaire, be good at everything, be super erudite, infl uence the
world exactly the way I like...”
HEIGHT DIFFERENCES
LIFESTYLE
Lisa Speleers & Trisha Van de Velde
Sixth Grade Students.
Best friends since they were three years old.
Lisa is 30cm taller than Trisha.
Jokes they have to put up with: “Ha-ha there goes the dwarf
and the giant!”
What they Wish for: “B.F.F. (Best Friends Forever)”
35
36
THE UNAVOIDABLE ISSUE
ANOTHER WORD ON
Scars
— They look vulnerable, just the
way we like them. Soft, just the way
we imagined them. Yet confident,
just the way we wished we were.
Have a look, and try telling us you
wouldn’t want one for yourself…
Photography Ulrike Biets
Gary Gross, 30.
Project leader. Lives in Antwerp.
¤
A big scar where he once had a mole. Gary
was born with it, but when it got infected it had to be
removed.
Steven Raeman, 34.
Teacher. Lives in Brussels.
¤
Imagine sitting under an oak-tree as a kid,
listening to your teacher‘s pirate stories and having a big
branch fall on your face.
Claire Burléon, 30.
Cinema light specialist and photographer.
Originally from Battice, lives in Brussels.
¤
Was born with a cleft palate and a harelip.
SCARS
LIFESTYLE
37
Adrien Lemoine, 22.
Fashion design student. Lives in Brussels.
¤
Got the scar on his cheek in a fight when his
opponent pulled out a knife. The scar on his forehead is
the result of a nasty fall he made when he was a child. He
fell against a table.
Frederik Geuvens, 18.
Language student. Originally from Turnhout but lives in
Leuven.
¤
Got his throat slit by a surgeon who removed
his thyroid after having diagnosed multinodulaire goiter,
a big word for knobs.
Eric Meersman, 54.
Works at AB café-resto. Lives in Brussels.
¤
morning.
Fell on the edge of a closet one Sunday
38
THE BIGGER THE BETTER ISSUE
THREE OF THE BEST
Big Bubblies
— Recent nightclub outings have revealed a new breed of partyharders: they want the best, biggest and dearest bottle in the bar,
and want it projected on an LCD screen for fellow clubbers to
envy. In preparation for summer nights spent on remote islands
corking it up, here we showcase our pick of supersized sparklers
contrasted with dusty double deckers…
Photography Operation Panda
Art Direction Mélisande Mc Burnie
1.
The Towering
Teaser
2.
The Ubiquitous
Upstager
House
Moët & Chandon
Capacity
Magnum (1.5L)
Height
39cm
Flutes Filled
33
Regularly Appears At
Flagship boutique openings in
Shanghai
Why We Chose It
For its welcomed familiarity
Best Enjoyed
With a bowl of strawberries
House
Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin
Capacity
Jeroboam (3L)
Height
50cm
Flutes Filled
68
Super-yacht christening parties
on the Côte d’Azur
Why We Chose It
For its undertones of classic
luxury
Best Enjoyed
With the Eastern block under
each arm
3.
The Flashy
Foamer
House
Piper-Heidsieck
Capacity
Magnum (1.5L)
Height
39cm
Flutes Filled
44
Champions’ League celebrations
in Chelsea
Why We Chose It
For its resilient presence
Best Enjoyed
With more than a little
OTT-ness
BIG BUBBLIES
LIFESTYLE
39
40
THE HEAVYWEIGHT ISSUE
THE SHOWSTOPPERS
You’ve Been Tagged
— Typeface, and big one at that, was given centre stage for
this issue’s showstoppers, confidently towering over most of
our selection, bar Eastpack’s humongous carryall of course.
Photography Operation Panda
Illustration Laurent Geens
01. Fat Sac
Call us megalomaniacs, but we like our
shoulder-slingers jumbo-sized, and
Eastpack’s Raf Simons-designed bag is
just that, and much, much more. A fresh
take on the classic soldier sac, this resolutely
more showy alternative, crème meshed and
silver-padded, satisfied our need for attention. We like it when big brands with big
ideas do big things, and this new addition to
the now established collaborative collection
is further proof that big can sometimes actually be better.
Raf Simons Bag for Eastpack (€ 320)
YOU’VE BEEN TAGGED
LIFESTYLE
41
02. Neckweight
We were instantly struck by this intricately
interwoven necklace and its wrap-around
ways. Stretching at 50cm long, it combines
Asian-influenced embroidery with coulourful rock crystal, onyx and glass stones.
From a series of three, we picked it for its
ability to defy gravity, its elongated threads
and welcomed playfulness.
‘Asian Style’ Necklace (€ 290)
Available from AXL
Place Brugmann 16 Brugmannplaats
1050 Brussels
03. Shady Show
With summer comes our chosen pick of
eyewear, one for him and one for her. For
him, you have Californian newcomer Sabre’s
Hang Loose shades, with their purple hazedtint and straight-lined rims. Infused with an
oversized sense of coolness, we made them
our male monocles of choice simply because
they made us lose a couple of years of age.
For her, we selected a slightly more subdued,
tortoise-shelled pair of Marc Jacobs
frames, reminiscent of the swinging 60s with
a welcome touch of contemporary comfort.
The added bonus? Both pairs can easily be
swapped to be worn either by him or her.
Sabre’s Hang Loose (€109,95)
Marc Jacob’s TS 25 (€277)
04. Big Time
We’re slowly coming to terms with the fact
that mobile phones alone cannot be our sole
provider of the time going past, so we fi nally
resorted to strap some chromed chronological hardware to our wrists. Our fi rst timepiece of choice was Bell & Ross’ ruggedand-rough watch (pictured to the right), a
testosterone-infused heavyweight squared to
perfection. Our slightly more gaudy choice
comes from household time-teller Swatch.
Classical in its simplicity, its orange-tinted
dial instantly stood out.
Bell & Ross’ BR01 Pro Titanium (€ 5,500)
Swatch’s Ocean Sunset (€140)
42
THE VOLUMINOUS ISSUE
THE SHOWSTOPPERS
05. Extra-Sauce
This reflective lip gloss, from worldrenowned make-up artist Ellis Faas, had all
the girls at the office popping to the mirror for
a touch up. The kind to make even the blandest of smackers pulpy, its scarlet red tones and
rich, creamy texture overshadowed its slightly
unpractical - dare we say off-putting - design.
Don’t let its outer disguise fool you though,
as this one’s sure to become a firm fi xture in
your handbag’s side pocket this summer.
Ellis Faas’ Creamy, Milky or Glazed Lips (€ 24.95)
Available from Cosmeticary
11B, Rue A. Orts
1000 Brussels
06. I's Huge
We’ve been known to be caught off guard
one too many times by bottom-of-the-page
small print and this here magnifying glass
is our weapon of choice in our fight against
legal overzealousness gone too far. Take
our word for it, you never know which sized
eight disclaimers you’ll have to decipher
to avoid being slapped with a preposterous claim, the most recent one we heard of
being Ryanair’s shocking plans for a toilet
usage tax. Consider this your ultimate cope
out-buster.
See Stockists page for full product
information.
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Endermologist
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HIGH
PLAINS
DRIFTER
44
THE VAST ISSUE
THE FASHION WORD
— We made sure to catch a glimpse of our drifters before
they disappear into the sanded highlands…
Photography Andrea Lennon
Art Direction & Fashion Eleonore Vanden Eynde
Jacket Gucci, Dress Cos, Shoes Gucci, Bag Dolce & Gabbana
Dress H&M, Top Emporio Armani, Shoes Christian Louboutin
Suit and shirt Matthew Williamson for H&M
Dress Hermès, Scarf Karl Lagerfeld
Dress Stella Mc Cartney, Necklace Giorgio Armani, Shoes Gucci
Dress Sonia Rykiel, Shoes Hermès
Her. Top h&m, Vest Lagerfeld Gallery, Belt Karl Lagerfeld, Ring June la Belle
Photography
Andrea Lennon
Art Direction & Fashion
Eleonore Vanden Eynde
Digital Assistant
Nicolas Velter
Retouched by
www.pomme3d.be
Make Up
Eileen Caytan
at Cestchic for Givenchy
Make Up Assistant
Orla Mc Keating
Hair
Adrien Coelho
at Gonay hair salon for Redken
Models
Amanda Kruijver & Cyril l’kaderi
at Dominiquemodels
With Thanks to
Cetem, Francis Férent, Mr Jacoby
and Delphine Laval
Him. Suit and Shirt by Matthew Williamson for h&m
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LILLY PUTS PICTURES
THAT GULLIVER FINDS,
GULLIVER TRAVELS
TRAVEL
WITH YOU ON MY MIND.
TWO CUPS OF LAUGHTER
LILLY SHALL POUR,
GULLIVER'S LAUGHIN'
BUT YOU WANTED MORE.
(LILLY PUTS PICTURES, CITY MUFFIN BOYS)
SPECIAL
THE COLOSSAL ISSUE
THE TRAVEL PAPERS
© Sarah Eechaut
54
Sound in
the City
Urban environments, what with their bright
lights, architecture and people, tend to be
more visual experiences than anything else.
Take any tourist walk or guided tour and
most of the items on show will point to the
beauty, ugliness or peculiarity of something
you see. Yet, with the advent of 'localisation', new forms of locally-crafted tourism
have emerged. These connect the human
being with his or her environment, mostly
through other senses than just the sight.
Travel to Vancouver, London, Brooklyn or
even Brussels and you might stumble upon
small groups of people smell-, light-, eat- and
sound-walking. The roots of soundwalks go
back to Buddhist and Hindu teachings as well
as the sixties’ 'Situanionist' movement. The
‘Situationist’ artists saw their surroundings
as playgrounds with elements that could be
singled out and combined into new realities.
Andrea Murs (Brooklyn, NYC) organises
soundwalks often in collaboration with art
projects and city festivals which focus on
'intersections' of individuals with their environment. Part of psychogeographer group
Conflux, she encouragers walkers to take in
their environments (be it traffic or air-conditioning pipes), the middle-ground noises
and the unexpected, high-pitched tones
(ambulances, helicopters, a baby crying) that
suddenly capture the melody of your whereabouts. She focuses on musical elements such
as keynotes, signals and soundmarks during
her walks, in which she constructs melodies
together with her fellow walkers. Another
aspect of soundwalks is an awareness of the
ecology of sound, of the noise surrounding us and of the pitches of everyday audibles. Through soundwalks, people become
intensely aware of their surroundings and a
city’s 'sound pollution', measured in signalto-noise ratio. For example, an environment
is deemed lo-fi when there is a high ambient
sound that blocks discrete ones, categorising it as a 'polluted' area. This goes back to
Robert Murray Schafers 'Soundscape project’
in the late 1960s, in which the traditional
landscape is replaced by a soundscape. This
community still exists and, in the general
trend of ecological thinking, continues to
strive to rekindle people with their sonic
environments. This implies that people are
not separate from their audio environment,
but instead play an active role in it: whether
our car engine roaring or our feet walking,
everything we do is an added tone in the
city’s heart beat. This principle is also taken
up by Brussels-based artist Ann Vandevijver,
known as IrmaFirma, who creates audiowalks in which the actions of the participants
shape the walk itself. "They might be walking
in a street and listening to some neighbourhood gossip on a tape and be instructed to
try walking in the same rhythm as the person
next to them. Suddenly you'll see a fragmented group synchronise their steps and take
on a marching rhythm. But it doesn't have
to be disciplined; it can also have an aboriginal quality to it." Ann has made thematic
soundwalks for the Expo58 anniversary,
but dreams of bigger things:"I would like to
broadcast sounds that touch a whole city, or
large masses of people. Imagine the whole of
Brussels moving to the same beat." And what
a sound that would make… (KVG)
THE TRAVEL SPECIAL
55
this means? Pedal and the wheels will move
forward – or backwards, depending which way
you’re peddling. Stop peddling and the bike
will grind to a halt. Simple. And what about
the brakes? They aren’t any. You’ll need to
resist the turning pedals. Hair-raising it is, but
oh-so thrilling and, quite simply rejuvenating.
Fixed gears, or ‘fi xies’ as they are more
commonly known in the close-knit world of
fi xed riders, aren’t anything new. Indeed, the
fi rst modern bicycle was a fi xed gear, although
it quickly fell out of favour once freewheels
and handbrakes became common occurrence.
And although the riding style continued to
thrive in velodromes and racing tracks the
world over, it seemed to have lost its appeal to
city cats. That is until bike messengers from
San Francisco to New York adopted the phenomenon as their own. What most appealed
to them was the bike’s lack of parts, minimising risks of theft or the need for repair. What
is more, the phenomenon’s DIY essence means
most riders are their own mechanics, having
actually built their bikes themselves.
Which is what really sets these bikes apart
– the customising streak of their owners and
the bikes resulting distinctiveness. You’ll get
‘fi xies’ with straight handlebars, fi xies with
curved handlebars, others with short ones and
others with racing handlebars. Then you have
the frame, and its geometry: you have supple
lugged steel frames, stiff yet efficient aluminum
frames, track bike frames or frames with more
relaxed – read all conquering – shapes. Then
you still have to choose your wheels – 29, 27
or 26 inches –, rims and saddle. Be careful
though, as you could quickly fi nd yourself out
of pocket such is the amount of choice available in parts and accessories.
For newcomers to the concept, we have
just the resources needed for a crash-course
in fi xed gear ethics, aesthetics and mechanics.
The fi rst thing you’ll need to do is get yourself
a copy of ‘Mash SF’ (www.mashsf.com), the
ground-breaking documentary on the fi xed
gear community out of San Francisco, known
as fi xed gear capital of the world. Getting a
subscription to COG magazine, published
out of London, will also help with keeping
abreast on all fi xed gear going ons. (NL)
© Yassin Serghini
THE TRAVEL PAPERS
I Need a Fix
The fi rst time we laid our eye on a fi xed gear
bike, we instantly were caught off guard by its
appealing minimalist aesthetic and cool composure. Distinctive in its design, its light aluminum frame and unique composite wheel set
it apart from its other road-worthy counterparts – and this isn’t taking into account the
phenomenon’s obvious speed factor. Indeed,
fi xed gear riders are, more often than not,
helmet-wearing kamikazes with a propensity
for urban thrills and with probably one too
many visits paid to the emergency services.
You guessed it right, fi xed gear riders – slaloming diehards and nutty mechanics – aren’t
the type to keep to the right on the bike lane.
No, they’ll be the ones speeding past you…
And the reason for that is engineering
simplicity at its best. Without wanting to get
overly technical about it - although, to be fair,
that is part of the fi xed gear appeal – the differentiating factor compared to run-of-themill wheels is that fi xed gear bicycles’ sprockets are screwed directly on to the hub. What
www.fi xedgearlondon.com
www.fi xedgeargallery.com
www.councilofdoombc.blogspot.com
56
ADVERTORIAL
01.
The Word
& Maasmechelen Village
— What if we told you we knew of a place, less
than an hour’s drive from Brussels, where shopping
actually means the client is king, where shopkeepers
are forthcoming without being imposing and, more
importantly, where discounts rule, albeit in style. The
Word drives up to Maasmechelen Village outlet shopping
for a day of recession-busting spending.
THE WORD & MAASMECHELEN VILLAGE
02.
The day started off to somewhat of a bumpy start.
It was barely past 8h30 on a Saturday morning
and here we were, lost in Brussels’ suburbs,
looking for a friend’s daughter we had to pick
up. Eager to get on our way, we quickly came
to our senses, promptly finding our bearings
and setting sail for Maasmechelen, our Mappy
instructions firmly plastered to the dashboard.
Three turns to the right, follow the sign posting
once the last highway exited ( E314 direction
Leuven / Genk, then Exit 33 ) and you’re there
in 52 minutes and some, door-to-door.
Once arrived, the “wows” and “let me outs”
audible from the backseat predicted a day of
puppy-eyed looks, calculated buys and shop
floor hysteria. From afar, a quaint village of
pale-coloured village houses neatly aligned
along a central high street instantly reminded
us of what we ceased to like about downtown
shopping: the crowds, difficult parking and
an overall sense of unnecessary urgency. We
hadn’t even set foot on the paved stones when
we were already positively impressed by what
we were sure was to be yet another grisly day
out at a retail outlet. We’d be proven wrong
more than a couple of times during the day…
Having fi nally found our other group of
friends, we decided on some necessary dayplanning around a freshly grounded cup of
frothy coffee and morning-scented tea at our
fi rst stop, Gastronomia Cellini. Our orders
taken, we congregate around the Village’s
directory, plotting our descent upon the
high street’s many boutiques. Levi’s, Hugo
Boss, Marithé+Francois Girbaud, Pringle
of Scotland, Petit Bateau, Bodum, Villeroy &
Boch, and the list could go on. If anything, it’d
actually be more difficult to shop here, given
the amount of choice – not to forget the fact
that everything was heavenly discounted.
THE TRAVEL SPECIAL
03
First fashion foray was understated knitwear specialist Essentiel, with its airy boutique,
smiley shop attendants and good mix of pieces.
Fixtures and fittings echoing the boutique’s
high street counterpart, extending the brand’s
overall experience to the outlet world, something paramount to the Maasmechelen concept.
Then came Bodum for some inspired tableware
(chunky tea cups going for €5 originally priced
at €12) followed by Diesel with its delmontelined denim racks. If these were supposedly
different retail offerings than what we were
accustomed to in Brussels, it sure didn’t show.
We returned to our adopted gastro-eatery
for lunch, with some digging into their generous pizzas and others snacking on bruschettas, preparing for the rest of the day’s purchasing promenade. This included popping into
G-Star, buying a pair of Converses’ and then
letting loose in Versace, all the while amazed
at how far €100 could actually stretch. They
say ‘recessionistas’ is the new buzzword in
marketing departments the world over, and
this surely is where they come and play.
The fi nishing touch though, is how unlike
a retail outlet this all felt. You won’t have to
elbow your way to the shirt of your choice,
battling it out with crazed housewives with
one too many discount-hunts under their
belts. Nor will you have to remove a piece of
year-old chewing-gum from your high-heels
as we lost count of the amount of street cleaners we saw in the space of a couple of hours.
Why we’ll go back and hope to take you
with us? Because in many ways, and more so
in these harsh economic times, it is a much
better alternative to Paris. All you need to
do is try it once, just once. Trust us, similarly
to us urging you to go to the museum, you’ll
thank us once you get there.
The Facts
Door-to-Door Timing
(down to a second)
52 minutes and 34 seconds
(precise)
Number of Boutiques
95 with national and
international brands
Shopping Bag Count
11
Should have Paid
€ 749
Actually Paid
€ 380
The Other Villages
You Should Know
La Vallée Village in France (40
minutes away from central Paris)
and Bicester Village (one hour
from London)
04.
01.
02.
03.
04.
Spring Pickings
Walking The Strip
In The Bag
The Plan of Attack
57
58
THE LARGE ISSUE
THE PHOTO ALBUM
The Wanderings
of Walter and
Wendy Word
— Our in-house mascots
have it cut-out for
themselves. Day-tripping
and tip-toeing from one
black and white landscape
to the other, you’d be
forgiven for thinking
they actually were sleep
walking. “Wendy, are you
still awake? No Walter,
we’re dreaming…”
Over the bridge
Words Mélisande Mc Burnie
One giant step across the river
Past the windmill
And lonely highways
THE WANDERINGS OF WALTER & WENDY WORD
THE TRAVEL SPECIAL
Down the back allies and empty streets
Tiptoe over rooftops
Under the bridge
It was all a dream
And back home again
Pictures chosen with a nostalgic blast to the past
59
60
THE GULLIVER ISSUE
THE SPECIAL FASHION
Printed Dress Idiz Bogam, Vintage Suitcase Delvaux
PACKING LIGHT
THE TRAVEL SPECIAL
Packing Light
Departing or arriving, packing or unpacking, looking in or
looking out. Such are the dilemmas faced by a confused
generation of tormented travelers…
Photography Vincent Fournier
Fashion and Interiors Justine Glanfi eld
61
Yellow Blouse Hoss Intropia
Black Dress AF Vandevorst
Kimono Vintage Stylists’ Own, Bag Delvaux
All Clothes Lacoste Club, Bag Hermès
66
Vintage Braces A La Page, Vintage Bag Burberry, Vintage Blue Shirt Idiz Bogam, Trousers Essentiel
Photographer
Vincent Fournier
www.carolelambert.com
Hair
Adrien Coelho at Close Up IMM
for L’Oreal
Fashion and Interiors
Justine Glanfi eld
www.number76.be
Make Up
Eileen Caytan at cestchic
for Givenchy
with photo perfection foundation
Assistants
Kate Fichard, Yassin Serghini
Digital Assistant
Michael at La Fabrique
Production
Eleonore Vanden Eynde
Models
Sofi a and Dimitri Gillet
at Dominique Models
Retouched by
Bee Factory www.beefactory.be
With thanks to
La Fabrique
Vilhelm Hammershøii
www.superdry.be
68
THE WHOPPING ISSUE
THE SPECIAL SHOWSTOPPERS
Ready for Take Off
— We’re tricky travellers to treat when it comes to our
pick of trip-fit accessories, although we settled on some
suitcase-suited specialties guaranteed to satisfy the most
discerning of tastes.
Photography Sarah Eechaut
Diptyque Atomiser
Braun's Travel Alarm Clock
Hey, Delphine – you know that perfume of
mine you like so much? The one that smells
like a fig tree? Dyptique just put it out in a
special travellers edition: three mini bottles,
one interchangeable atomiser. Very cute
piece of design. If I can persuade someone to
buy me one, I’ll take it to Milan. Any ideas?
Kisses xxx Hettie
Quite simply an essential, this clock has
been ensuring jet-lagged travelers get a
piece of the breakfast buffet nonetheless.
Designed by Braun’s head of design for
more than 30 years, the formidable Dieter
Rams, the crisp clock and its distinctive dial
is a prime example of the German designer’s
knack for functionality with subtle appeal.
Further testament to the clock’s enduring
legacy is its ‘Made in Germany’ stamp of
approval, something we hadn’t seen in quite
some time.
Available from Les Précieuses
83 Rue A. Dansaertstraat
1000 Brussels
Braun’s Travel Alarm Clock, Type 4746/AB1
READY FOR TAKE OFF
THE TRAVEL SPECIAL
69
Fasten Seat Belt's Z-Cards
Ever been on holidays, bumped into another
group of tourists and been ashamed at their
lack of local cultural sensitivity? Well, next
time, instead of biting your tongue into not
telling them off, simply give them one of these.
Z-Cards are handy fold-out etiquette bibles ‘do’s and don’ts’ coupled with local expressions we strongly recommend you firmly staple to your
suitcase’s inner lining. Illustrated with cunning
simplicity through the use of colourful illustrations (courtesy of our very own designers pleaseletmedesign and delphine dupont), the cards
were initially distributed for a year at Brussels
Airport, with a televised cartoon version broadcasted on all Thomas Cook and Air France
flights as well as on board the Heathrow Express
in London. With more folded forewarnings set
for Asia in the coming months, we’re counting on
you to be good ambassadors now that you have
the necessary tools.
Email [email protected]
to receive your Z-Card
Samsonite Black Label
by Victor & Rolf
Samsonite’s Black Label imprint continues
in its quest for collaborative creation with a
latest collection by enfants terribles of Dutch
fashion design, Viktor & Rolf. Renowned
for their uncompromising unconformity and
trademark frivolity, the devilish duo update
Samsonite Black Label’s range with a
collection for men, and one for women. We
fell for the men’s Overnight Boarding Bag for
its forgoing of unnecessary inner pouches, its
solid and well-rounded outer shell and bold
black monochrome.
Overnight Boarding Bag
by Viktor & Rolf for Samsonite (€595)
Available from Samsonite Black Label
Stores in Brussels and Antwerp
70
THE HUGE ISSUE
THE SPECIAL SHOWSTOPPERS
Havana Chic
Designers have been going a crazy for tape
recently – printing it with everything from
picture frame pattern to porcelain cracks.
Draw Me A Sheep’s Havana Chic tape has a
richer frame of reference than most, simultaneous evoking the knocked about luggage
of the kind of travellers seldom featured by
Condé Nast, and the endlessly copied logo of
the world’s most luxurious baggage company.
And it actually, you know, sticks. (HJ)
www.drawmeasheep.com
World Traveler's Plug Set
These come in many shapes and forms, but
we had yet to fi nd one to rock our boat.
Enter the World Traveler’s Plug Set, picked
up not too long ago at the MoMa store in
New York. A sturdy and modular all-in-one
kit of travel-friendly plugs, it is held together
by a perforated rubber centerpiece, allowing for each plug to be slotted in wherever
you please. Colour-indexed, each plug
forms like Voltron when packing up again.
Functionalism at its best.
World Traveler’s Plug Set ($18)
Available from www.momastore.org
delvaux.com
Newspaper Bag, Men’s “1829” Collection, Designed by Bruno Pieters – Cabas, Vegetable tanned calf – 250 examples
72
THE 95F ISSUE
THE PICK
Thinking Big
— Outsized furniture seems to stink of pre-economic crisis
excess – these days we’re going for big ideas instead of big objects.
Writer Hettie Judah
01.
Senz Storm Umbrella
02.
Clouds
03.
Magno Radio
We spotted this apparently indestructible
Dutch design in London, where it had been
nominated for a Design Museum award.
We immediately thought that it was just the
thing for Oostende in July. The aerodynamic
shape makes it resistant to extreme winds as
well as rain, and it has become a cult item on
Japanese TV, where it has been submitted to
skydiving and wind-tunnels, without losing
its shape.
The Bouroullec brothers’ modular textiles
have created a kind of paradigm shift in
designing for contemporary interiors. As
with their previous linking forms, their
latest design, Clouds, can simply be linked
together as a dynamic sculptural form, but it
can also expand eternally to make dividers,
walls, and rooms within rooms, creating
flexible living spaces without the need for
formal architectural intervention.
A rare example of serious product design
credentials engaging with social and
environmental responsibilities. Singgih
S.Kartono has applied production-line efficiency to craft techniques, developing a sustainable business model that creates employment in his home village in Indonesia. The
pure lines and immaculate manufacture of
the radios speak more strongly than any
ethical selling point.
www.senzumbrellas.com
www.kvadratclouds.com
www.wooden-radio.com
04.
Hybrid Cutlery
05.
Freedom XXS Mobile Drive
Belgian design’s Mr Big purloined cutlery
wherever he went, in a lifelong quest for
perfect forms and materials. His design conclusion – a titanium fork, ceramic knife and
lacquer spoon – was only produced after his
death. For those of us who can’t afford the
originals (and there are few designer objects
we have ever wanted more) let this be inspiration to go hybrid.
We have a total design crush on Sylvain
Willenz at the moment. Between knocking
out new lamps for Established & Sons and
pursuing his own cerebral aesthetic in his
studio furniture, he recently dipped his toe
in big corporate culture to design the housing
for the world’s smallest external 2.5” hard
drive. Willenz replaced the conventional
hard shell with a softer rubberised cover,
available in black, white, silver or gold.
Maarten Van Severen’s Hybrid Cutlery,
produced by When Objects Work
www.whenobjectswork.com
www.freecom.com
www.sylvainwillenz.com
THINKING BIG
DESIGN
73
01.
03.
© Julien Renault
© When Objects Work
02.
04.
05.
74
THE UNLIMITED ISSUE
THE NOVELTY
01.
The Mighty
Punt
Instead of a humble,
recession-sensitive launch,
new design house Skitsch is
coming in big, Italian style.
Writer Hettie Judah
Global economic downturn is for pussies –
right now the big boys of Italian design are
launching a new brand in a 600 square meter,
13-window corner showroom, angled right
into one of the central arteries of Milan. The
store will stock works by a stable of designers that reads like the hottest three inches
on a Hot Designers Who’s Who: from the
Campaña brothers, to Konstantin Grcic, to
Maarten Baas to Xavier Lust, with pieces
ranging from cutlery and ceramics to pingpong tables and one-offs.
Skitsch is not only a new brand: it is, for
Europe, a completely new concept. Inspired
in part by the hyper influential New Yorkbased design emporium Moss, in part by
the US retail concept Design Within Reach,
02.
Skitsch is about to become Europe’s ritziest,
most directional, catalogue shop. “You can
see a product in Milan and then buy it in
Manchester or London, or receive the catalogue at home,” explains CEO Renato Preti,
who points out that the most significant difference between the structure of Skitsch and
its American inspiration is that the Italian
company will work with its own collection:
these pieces will not be available elsewhere.
Working in partnership with Bvlgari, Preti
has serious form in the design business, having
previously managed investments in B&B
Italia and Moooi. His fellow shareholders
include investors in design houses MDF and
Artemide, as well as architects, and captains
of Italian industry. This is not exactly a bunch
of bored wives setting up a furniture shop.
Skitsch is also a significant departure
from the (perhaps somewhat outdated) image
consumers have of Italian design. Forget
immaculately coordinated furniture and
homogenised aesthetic concepts, this is less
a coherent collection than a rowdy family of
spirited children. Inspired, perhaps, by the
attention-grabbing success of the British fi rm
Established & Sons, the collection is dedicated to individual pieces with big personalities.
“It’s an eclectic collection composed of useful
pieces for living; each is an expression of the
personality of a designer,” explains artistic
director Cristina Morozzi. “We selected the
designers for their personalities, the drive of
their design, the innovation and the emotional aspect of their work.”
One of Italy’s most celebrated design commentators, Morozzi enjoys the prospect of
giving a bit of a knock to Italian interiors.
“Italian people are very careful; they pay a
lot of attention to detail and try to have their
living space more organised than people do
abroad,” she explains. “But people need some
new surprises and emotions in this area.”
Morozzi and Preti are not alone in their
belief that there could be a big audience right
now for easy-to-buy design pieces – there’s
a strong line of economic intelligence that
argues that as people are spending more time
at home during the downturn, what money
they have to spend on luxuries will most likely
go on improving their home environment.
With pan-European distribution (a London
store is already planned for next year), and
a roster of works emanating from Rio to
Rotterdam, it seems a peculiarly un-Italian
Italian business, but Preti is convinced that
local sensibility will shine through “It’s like a
Fellini movie,” he explains. “The actors can be
from Sweden, the photographer from France,
but because the director is Italian, Italy is in
the taste, the approach and in the details.”
www.skitsch.it
01.
02.
Xavier Lust’s Blow Up Table
Konstantin Grcic’s Chair 43
For subscriptions and more information, go to www.thewordmagazine.be
76
THE SPRAWLING ISSUE
Megalopolitan
City Blues
— Onthaal au die
Eurocore ! You currently
live in Europe’s most
populous megalopolitan
city region.
Writer Hettie Judah
Illustration Muriel Bleus
Photographs of the earth at night show lights
indicating human habitation clustering across
areas greater than the world’s biggest cities
and sliding over national borders. The largest
clusters include Greater Tokyo, the Yangtze
Delta, the north east coastal zone of the
United States and a sprawling blob in the west
of Europe. Seen at 3am last night, an image
of that last zone would have featured the light
you put on when you got up to go to the bathroom: the sprawling blob is your home.
Covering a zone that includes Ruhr,
Cologne, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels,
Antwerp and Lille, and taking in a population estimated at 50 million, the territory has
variously been dubbed the Euro-Lowlands
or Eurocore (or, when Rem Koolhaas is in a
less generous mood, the Hollowcore). Given
the centuries of blood spilled carving up this
section of the world map, it’s both comic and
horrifying to see the Dutch, Flemish, West
Germans, Wallon and Northern French
fi nally united by a coincidence of urban
tendency.
2007 was the tipping point at which the
world’s population became half urban, and
two years later, estimates would take us
beyond that – the majority population of the
world now lives in cities. As a result, we’re at
a point in history where there’s a great deal
of thought going on about big cities and the
problems facing them, yet the Euro-Lowlands
is peculiar for its lack of a significant metropolis – for all its cultural riches, there is no
World City here on the scale of London, New
York or Tokyo. We Euro-Lowland dwellers
are left out of the debates and developments
going on surrounding the planning of transport systems, the tackling of environmental
issues and need for politically independent
city governance.
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
Escaping for a minute from issues of
national sentiment, what if we step back far
enough to see the zone for the one great megalopolis that it is? Rather than living in one of
the zone’s dozens of petty metropolises, our
administrative hours spent squabbling over
the semantics of policy, we become inhabitants of one big, polycentric city – the world’s
biggest, in fact - facing up to all the big city
problems.
“Architects often respond to questions in the
same way” muses Verschuere. “They tend to
respond with objects. We beleive there is a different way to work with cities without always
producing landmark objects. (…) When the
question is urban, the response is often architectural. In our office, we try to engage a reflection on urban and landscape architecture by
taking as a starting point the construction of
its image. Between facts and fiction.”
The Question was Urban,
the Response Architectural
“Looking at the picture of Brussels, you see
that what defi nes the city is not the built
matter. We architects fi ll things, but in the
end, the image of the city is created not only
by the architecture, but more fundamentally
by its infrastructure.”
Adrien Verschuere
Baukunst architectural office.
The contemporary megalopolis is a city
created almost by hazard. While we may
see the work of architects, urban designers
and planners in its most visible zones (in the
old city centres, around the seats of government, learning and economic power), the
growth of the megalopolis is often too fast to
follow established construction routes. New
residential zones sprout up where people can
access them by road and rail, and where it is
easy to hook up new buildings up to an existing water and power supply.
In imagining what the role of an architect
might be in our new Euro Lowlands, we talked
with Adrien Verschuere, a young architect
working out of Brussels who sees his role not
only to propose construction projects, but also
to think and promote debate about the built
environment. Baukunst’s digitally manipulated images of cities break urban areas back
to their essence. In gradually stripping away
familiar elements, they uncover those parts of
a city that give it its peculiarity and make it
recognisable.
In his picture of Brussels (pictured on the
right), it becomes a city without institutions
or major landmarks, the capital neutered of it
organs of power and transformed into a lowrise residential conurbation. What makes
it recognisably Brussels is the road and rail
network, the streets and public spaces. For
another city it might be the river, or other geographical marker. For architects, all are sobering reminders of what gives a city its thrust and
energy – the structures that allow people to
move themselves around, rather than the buildings they erect when they decide to stay still.
" We architects fill
things, but in the end,
the image of the city
is created not
by the architecture,
but by infrastructure. "
Adrien Verschuere
As a young architect Verschuere fi nds the
photographic works to be a useful talking
point, a way to gauge public response to urban
propositions, but he shies away from the idea
that city architecture should be opened up
to a public forum. “People should express
themselves about the city, but they should not
design the city; I think the idea of a hyperdemocratic city is dangerous.”
A poorly functioning city centre is one in
which people drive between buildings, where
there is no life on the streets. This is not just
a cute spiritual issue, it is also an economic
one: if workers drive to their office from the
suburbs and then straight back out again, they
are taking their money with them; they earn in
©2009 BAUKUNST - Adrien Verschuere
MEGALOPOLITAN CITY BLUES
Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears,
Even if the thread of their discourse is secret,
Their rules absurd, their perspectives deceitful,
Everything conceals something else.
— Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
DESIGN
77
78
THE GIGANTIC ISSUE
the city, but spend in the suburbs. The shift
of the affluent residential population to the
swelling suburbs is classically referred to as
the Doughnut Effect. In our Euro-Lowlands,
it might be better referred to as the Waffle
Effect – a pattern of impoverished, underpopulated small city-centers framed by airy
residential districts.
Our Euro-Lowlands megalopolis is a
very low-density urban zone, with sprawls
stretching right between the small cities in
the region. One thing that drives people into
these endless suburbs and satellite cities is
the poor quality of life in city centres – as
Verschuere argues, sometimes the solution to
city problems are urban rather than architectural. High density urban areas are desirable
from an environmental perspective – if more
people inhabit the same area, they travel less
and are easier to supply with resources – but
to make high density inner city areas attractive, they need good public spaces and a well
functioning infrastructure.
No Politics Without Architecture,
no Architecture Without Politics
“The reason we went for cities is because they
have certain legislative responsibilities, and
powers that mean they can do things irrespective of national politics. They don’t have
to get permission handed down to them by
national government. Arguably the genesis
of this was that cities could take action where
they felt national governments couldn’t.”
Simon Reddy
ex-policy director of Greenpeace,
now manager of the secretariat of C40,
in partnership with the Clinton
Climate Initiative.
When Simon Reddy came to Brussels earlier
this year, he shared a Greening Cities conference platform with former London mayor Ken
Livingstone, and a clutch of Belgian officials
who behaved so poorly that they shall remain
unnamed. Reddy was representing C40 –
an urban environmental initiative bringing
together the world’s 40 largest cities.
Still in its infancy, C40 asks cities to
commit to a climate change action plan,
and then creates a platform for information
exchange between the top level of the administration in different cities to help make it
possible. The mayor of Jakarta gets to learn
about Bogota’s rapid bus network, the mayor
of Seoul can pick up tips from Tokyo’s efficient
water-delivery system, the mayor of Mumbai
can discover how Stockholm runs its transport system on bio-gas from sewage. Clubbed
together, the cities have substantial purchasing power, and can push the development of
cleaner technologies – LED streetlights, and
electric vehicles, for example - with a promise
of massive procurement.
" The reason we went
for cities is because
they have certain
legislative
responsibilities,
and powers that
mean they can do
things irrespective
of national politics. "
We asked a random selection of Wordites
to suggest a candidate for the fi rst mayor of
the Euro-lowlands. Nominations included:
Luc Deleu (architect, urbanist), Jean-Claude
Van Damme (actor, icon), Rebecca Harms
(Green MEP), Rem Koolhaas (architect,
urban theorist), Job Cohen (current mayor of
Amsterdam), Peaches (singer, agent provocateur), Anne Power (European commissioner,
sustainable development guru), Walter Van
Beirendonck (fashion designer, good citizen).
Luc Schuytens (cartoonist).
As a coalition they represent a mixture of
power, celebrity, aesthetic flair, rebel spirit,
integrity and courage. Big city mayors today are
high-profile – they need the ego to follow up their
own vision for the city, but it’s a rare city official
that can separate themselves from the demands
of the here and now. At their best, mayors are
good at working out what a city needs in the
approximate present (they may be a little out of
date, they may be a little visionary): the current
population elected them, and it is the current
population that they usually aim to satisfy.
Largely for this reason (ignoring for the
moment questions of political corruption and
‘jobs for the boys’) politics and architecture
too often bring out the worst in one another.
The short term of any political tenure does not
encourage long-term thinking – mayors favour
tangible, visible results that can emerge within
their period of office. Simon Reddy, with his
environmentalist’s hat on, reminds us that any
new buildings should be part of our planning
for the serious long term. The West European
urban centres of the Euro-Lowlands have
building stock that has endured for centuries
– in planning new constructions, we should be
thinking as far ahead again into the future.
Simon Reddy
Making Yourself Understood among
the Euro-lowlife
Reddy admits that there is now a “ healthy
competitiveness” between the city mayors
that helps push things along, but none of it
would be possible without the power and
leverage that a big city mayor wields. The
Brussels officials on the platform with Reddy
begged to join C40, then admirably demonstrated exactly why a non-political figurehead
was so important by bickering about petty
local problems for the rest of the evening.
Brussels, of course, doesn’t have a hope of
getting into C40 – but with a population of
50 million, our Euro-Lowland megalopolis
would go straight to the top of the list, knocking Houston, Texas (pop 2,200,000) off the
bottom in the process. Before any of that we
would need a mayor.
“I think there is now a sense of room for more
than one kind of architect. There are roles for
people who are architects but who don’t build,
there is a role for people who make individual
monuments and there is a role for people
who make fabric. What there probably isn’t
enough of are architects who think. We could
do with a few more ideas about cities – if you
think about it there are really very few. ”
Deyan Sudjic,
architecture critic, author, advisor to
The Urban Age Project, director of
The Design Museum in London.
While C40 is trying to establish a dialogue between big cities, The Urban Age
Project (organised by the London School
©2009 BAUKUNST - Adrien Verschuere
MEGALOPOLITAN CITY BLUES
The richness of decorations,
The landscape’s charm, the architecture’s charm
And all the effects of theatre decorations rest
Purely on laws of perspectives
— Franz Böhle, Theater-Katechismus
DESIGN
79
80
THE GRAND ISSUE
of Economics and Deutsche Bank’s Alfred
Herrhausen Society) also works on the dialogue within cities: the dialogue that should,
but seldom does, exist between planners,
administrators, architects, theorists and
economists.
" I think there is now
a sense of room for
more than one kind
of architect.
We could do with
a few more ideas
about cities
– if you think
about it there are
really very few. "
eroded their ability to communicate outside
their specialist area. This is a deep problem
when trying to negotiate how to coexist in
an increasingly urban future. “People that
write constitutions, economists, mayors and
politicians are not usually a group that talks
together,” explains Sudjic. “They tend to see
each other as enemies, or as frivolous. The
architects tend to behave quite badly in front
of each other: watching Rem Koolhaas and
Peter Eisenman not speaking to one another
was fascinating: the level of debate is very
hermetic and very cultish. At some of those
Urban Age events you can see that {architects}
haven’t really worked out how to talk in front
of another audience who just don’t get it.”
Designing for this new Urban Age – in
which more than half the world’s population
lives in cities – requires architects to develop
a new set of skills, not all of them architectural. Quite evidently communication skills
are part of this – both inside and outside the
profession - and the ability to play the political game without becoming entangled in it.
Speaking recently with the American
landscape architect Martha Schwartz, she
proposed a new role for her profession as
something akin to marriage brokers within
urban re -development projects. Landscape
architecture in the urban context is the design
of everything on the ground level – in many
projects it is an ‘add on’ element, the last
element to be brought in on a project, yet
it is also key to the city experience. Rather
than allowing planning to be dominated by
the vertical edifices, Schwartz imagines the
landscape architects of the future to take the
central chair, to make projects harmonious
from the citizen pedestrian’s eye view, designing urban space from the ground up, rather
than the top down.
Deyan Sudjic
Back to the Grid – an Escape from
Obsolete Architecture
Writing in The Endless City, a publication
generated by the project in 2007, Sudjic noted
that what separated the city from the village
was a question of choice; the city was “an à la
carte menu” as he described it.
While an abundance of choice is enriching
in one sense, it also allows us to ignore what
we fi nd unpalatable: we can choose to hang
out with that element that reinforces our own
worldview. For all its close quarters and lack
of choice, a village forces its inhabitants to
develop mechanisms for dealing with diverse
elements of humanity.
The rarefied, ultra-selective life of the
top-end big city dwellers seems to have
In contemplating a role for the future of the
architect in our Euro-Lowlands Deyan Sudjic
emphasises the need for cities to grow not just
according to the size of their population, but
in terms of growing sophistication and changing needs. We shouldn’t just think in terms
of bigger cities, but more flexible inner city
spaces; “what makes cities fl ourish is the
sense of not closing down possibilities – not
freezing them, not sterilising them.”
In Sudjic’s eyes, this does not necessarily
mean thinking in terms of modular, component-based structures, but of building works
with less tendency to rapid obsolescence; better
built, easier to re-interpret, expand or re-integrate in the future. “A grid is super fl exible,”
he notes. “And the London terraced house is
fantastically forgiving as a building type.”
The Euro-Lowlands is unlikely to be the
world’s largest megalopolis for long – the
population in other areas of the globe is rising
much more swiftly. As we dwindle down the
ranks of Megalopolitan city zones, the world
will become ever more urban, and if architects
are to have a celebrated role in the future they
need to learn to act in concord - at least with
one another - so that we can have built environments that not only satisfy the demands of
a booming city population, but also relate to
one another. Rather than producing isolated
tufts of human habitation, sites that connect
to one another aesthetically, ergonomically
or philosophically allow the city to grow and
weave back into itself like a non-stop fabric.
82
THE KING SIZE ISSUE
My Book
Weighs a
Tonne
— We’re flipping pages by
the kilo this month with
our pick of gargantuan
books. Limited in
numbers, they are the
ultimate in egocentric
publishing, often going
on to command mindboggling prices in auction
rooms the world over.
Contextualised within
Brussels’ Librairie Solvay,
we couldn’t help sitting our
in-house mascot beside
them…
Photography Yassin Serghini
Art Direction Mélisande McBurnie
Writer Nicholas Lewis
with Maria Groot (MG)
Lachapelle.
Artists and Prostitutes (2006)
Taschen
Having started his career at Warhol’s
Interview magazine, Lachapelle was always
destined for big things. With his often
surreal - some might say grotesque - photography, his aesthetic transcends all conventional photographic wisdom, combining
intensely vivid coulours with cunning and
witty art directions. The century’s de facto
celebrity glitterati photographer, he has
shot everyone from Tupac Shakur to Pamela
Anderson.
2,500 copies
Weighs 19.5 kg
7.5 cm High, 50 cm Large
698 pages
Costs €2,500
THE SHELF
Le Corbusier. Le Grand (2008)
By Jean-Louis Cohen & Tim Benton
Phaidon
The Swiss-French pioneer of modern
architecture, who is probably best-known
for his small pilgrim church Notre Dame
du Haut in Ronchamp (France), is given a
fitting retrospective on print in this giant of
a beast. Spanning his entire works – from
urban architecture to his many teachings –
the volume makes good this architectural
philosopher’s contribution to modern-day
urban co-habiting.
Weighs 9 kg
6 cm High, 42 cm Large
768 pages
Costs €150
Helmut Newton. SUMO (2000)
Edited by June Newton
Taschen
Helmut Newton is renowned for really
being the fi rst to add a solid touch of naked
glamour to fashion photography, at his
best when photographing scantily dressed
women in chic hotel rooms for the likes
of Vogue, Elle and Playboy. Famous for
considering himself a mere ‘gun for hire’,
this Australian of German origin singlehandedly defi ned fashion photography from
the 60s onwards, an achievement Taschen’s
SUMO pays tribute.
10,000 copies
Weighs 30 kg
7 cm High 70 cm Large
464 pages
Costs €7,000 (Philip Starck-designed
stand included)
MY BOOK WEIGHS A TONNE
GOAT. A Tribute to
Muhammad Ali (2004)
Taschen
Ali, the greatest boxer of all times, was an
incredible entertainer, his boyish good looks
and sharp, quick-witted tongue making him
as famous as his left hook. This mammoth
of a book is testament to this larger-than-life
character as well as being an incredible piece
of art publishing in its own right. GOAT.
The Greatest of all Times. Greatest indeed.
10,000 copies
Weighs 38 kg
792 pages
Costs € 3,000
Africa. Leni Riefenstahl (2005)
Edited by Angelika Taschen
Taschen
German photographer and director of controversial Nazi propaganda fi lm ‘Triumph
des Willens’ (1935), Riefenstahl also photographed the Nuba tribes’ people of Sudan,
with whom she lived for years. (MG)
Weighs 33,6 kg
560 pages
Costs €2,500
CULTURE
S,M,L,XL. (1995)
By Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau
Monacelli Press
If the concept of starchitects ever held much
ground, Dutchman Rem Koolhaas would be
its perfect embodiment, having done everything from Prada’s fl agship boutiques to the
Serpentine’s Summer Pavilion. Before his
celebrity stardom though, he published this
book of essays, sketches, drawings, thoughts
and diary entries – together with Canadian
designer Bruce Mau - which has gone on to
become an unofficial bible amongst archigeeks.
Weighs 2,7 kg
7 cm High, 24 Large
1,343 pages
Araki (2001)
Interviews by Jérôme Sans
Taschen
Of Japanese origin, Araki is essentially
known for his explicit and sexually-charged
photographs, such as those of Tokyo’s sex
industry during the 80s and others of the
curious Japanese bondage scene. Although
more than 350 books have been published
on his work, this beautifully bound book is
the most comprehensive yet.
2,500 copies
Weighs 19 kg
7.5 cm High, 51cm Large
636 pages
Costs €2,500
All Taschen books available from Taschen
Store Brussels
Place du Grand Sablon / Grote Zavelplein
1000 Brussels
83
84
THE HEFTY ISSUE
THE PENCIL
The One That Never Loses
— You probably think you’re funny, that he doesn’t get you and
that your jokes are lost on him, but believe us when we tell you
the joke actually is on him. And it isn’t because you have a herd
of sheep all approvingly laughing at your joke that you are any
funnier neither. You are not.
Illustration Jean-Biche
Loosely based on the ‘Kubiac’ character, from ‘Parker Lewis Can’t Lose’
THE ONE THAT NEVER LOSES
CULTURE
85
IN THE
NAME
OF…
86
THE SUPER DELUXE ISSUE
THE EYE
— Belgium entertains a strange relationship with religion.
Although clearly faith-led, beliefs aren’t worn on one’s
sleeve, with most followers of all walks of life preferring
to confine their chosen doctrines to insular and hermetic
places. In the first of our series on thematic visual
reportages, we take a peek at five of the most peculiar
places of worship in Belgium. Some are currently in the
news, some are interesting for their secrecy, whilst others
are simply architecturally striking.
Photography Sarah Michielsen
IN THE NAME OF…
¤
Brussels’ Grand Mosque, situated in the city’s Parc du Cinquantenaire /
Cinquantenaire Park, is the country’s most
ancient Mosque, built in 1897 for the year’s
‘Exposition’. Also the headquarters for
Belgium’s Islamic and Cultural Centre, it is
traditionally the main communication channel
between the country’s Islamic communities and the government – an issue of great
controversy among Belgium’s many Muslims.
Pictured is the women’s room, a vast and carpeted floor overlooking the main prayer room.
CULTURE
87
88
THE BUDDHA ISSUE
THE EYE
¤
Driving distance from the tourist-friendly city of Durbuy in the Ardennes,
the Château de la Somme is a strange affair.
Dating back to the 11th century, it was
purchased by ISKCON (The International
Society for Krishna Consciousness) in
1979 and renovated into a spiritual centre
dedicated to A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami
Prabhupada’s Vanipedia teachings. Made
up of a group of 80 permanent residents, as
well as other travelling pilgrims, the castle is
a curious case of spirituality meets capitalism. Indeed, guided tours of the castle and
its grounds are available at €5 a pop, and
it boasts a hostel as well as the region’s best
Indian food. The standout feature though
was the striking contrasts afforded between
the castle’s Goth-like style and its residents’
slightly more spiritual additions, such as lifesize portraits of the founder and gold-ornamented paintings, plates and door-knobs.
IN THE NAME OF…
CULTURE
89
90
THE ALMIGHTY ISSUE
THE EYE
¤
Nestled in the heart of Brussels’
centre, the ‘Eglise du Béguinage’ has been,
since April 7th 2009, the scene of some 230
illegal residents staging a hunger strike.
Spurred on by their unions, the group made
up of over 30 nationalities has been fighting
for regularisation for months now, lobbying the authorities for the publication of a
directive on the case, yet sadly having to
resort to hunger strikes in a fi nal attempt
at drawing some higher attention to their
case. Speaking to the church’s priest, Jean
Lochtem, we took note of the public outrage
at the turn of events: “We have had absolutely no response from the Minister’s offi ce,
not even an acknowledgement of receiving
our many petitions,” reveals the incredulous
priest. Having supported previous sittings
in 2000 and 2008, both successful in their
blanket regularisation of the plaintiffs, he
simply cannot understand the government’s
total silence this time.
¤
Historically known to date back
further than the government itself, Belgium’s
Free Masons Order has its headquarters
in Brussels’ Rue de Laeken / Lakenstraat,
walking distance from Place Sainte
Catherine / Sint-Katelijneplein. Although
slightly degraded, it remains a dramatic
piece of ego-architecture, made up of several
chambers, each as imposing as the other with
their towering columns and ‘Egyptianised’
architectural style. Walk past the main door
though, and you’ll be surprised how inconspicuous it all seems.
IN THE NAME OF…
CULTURE
91
92
THE ENORMOUS ISSUE
THE EYE
¤
Unbeknown to most, Brussels
Airport provides travelers with seven
religious services: Catholic, Protestant,
Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Laic and
Meditation for Humanists. They are responsible for everything from morally supporting
staff (crucial during difficult periods such
as Sabena’s bankruptcy), maintaining their
respective chapels and assisting passengers
having recently lost a loved one. They also
are a firm fi xture of any plane crash’s emergency plans, although in Brussels this reassuringly is a rare occurrence. All chapels are on
airside, and all are signaled by an internationally-recognised prayer room symbol.
IN THE NAME OF…
CULTURE
93
94
THE WELL-ENDOWED ISSUE
THE STOCKISTS
The Stockists
A
A.F Vandevorst
www.afvandevorst.be
B
Baukunst
www.bau-kunst.eu
Bell & Ross
www.bellross.com
+32 (0)2 347 28 85
Braun
www.braun.com
Burberry
www.burberry.com
E
Eastpack & Raf Simons
www.eastpack.com/rafsimons
+32 (0)3 298 20 00
Emporio Armani
www.emporioarmani.com
Essentiel
www.essentiel.be
F
Fasten Seat Belts
www.fastenseatbelts.eu
L
Lacoste
www.lacoste.com
M
Monacelli Press
www.randomhouse.com/
monacelli
C40
www.c40cities.org
Cameleon
www.cameleon.be
Sabre
www.sunglassesgiant.com
+32 (0)472 55 54 11
Samsonite Black Label
www.samsoniteblacklabel.com
+32 (0)55 33 33 70
Sonia Rykiel
www.soniarykiel.com
Marc Jacobs
www.marcjacobs.com
02 / 725 32 42
Stella Mc Cartney
www.stellamccartney.com
Moet Chandon
www.moet.com
Swatch
www.swatch.com
G
N
C
S
Giorgio Armani
www.giorgioarmani.com
Gucci
www.gucci.com
H
Cosmeticary
www.cosmeticary.com
Hermès
www.hermes.com
Cos
www.cosstores.com
H&M
www.hm.com
O
T
Taschen
www.taschen.be
P
Piper Heidsieck
www.piper-heidsieck.com
+32 472 555 411
U
Ugo Zaldi
www.ugozaldi.com
Phaidon
www.phaidon.com
V
D
Hoss Intropia
www.hossintropia.com
Q
Veuve clicquot
www.veuve-clicquot.com
R
W
Delvaux
www.delvaux.be
Design Museum London
www.designmuseum.org
Dolce & Gabbana
www.dolcegabbana.it
Dyptique
www.diptyqueparis.com
I
X
J
Y
K
Z
Karl Lagerfeld
www.karllagerfeld.com
Kotje
www.kotje.be
96
THE FULL-ROUNDED ISSUE
THE ROUND UP
pages 02 – 03
pages 04 – 05
lll#\^dg\^dVgbVcêVg[jbh#Xdb
i]ZhZXgZiXdYZd[ldbZc
Giorgio Armani
www.emporioarmaniparfums.com
page 07
LA BELL E
Essentiel
www.essentiel.be
page 09
É V A S I O
page 11
page 19
N
Symfonie.orkest.vlaanderen
Season. 2009 . 2010
All you need to know about banking
services on arriving in Belgium
concerts.
For more information have a look at
Brussels.
Palais des Beaux-Arts.
Take advantage of our ING Expat Convenience Services
+32 2 464 66 64 - [email protected] - www.ing.be
Poncho
en chèvre velours.
Bracelet
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en lézard.
Bracelet double tour
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Many banking services are available to expatriates
living in Belgium but there is nothing you need to
know about making such arrangements. That’s
a task for the ING Convenience Services experts.
Your bank accounts and cards can be ready for
you the moment you arrive in Belgium. ING’s Expat
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Bruxelles.
Tel. (02) 511 20 62.
Antwerpen.
Tel. (03) 227 09 43.
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Tel. (050) 62 71 99.
Rue au Beurre 24-26 I 1000 BRUXELLES I Tél : +32 2 511 95 98 I Fax : +32 2 511 47 48 I www.degreef1848.be I [email protected]
Hermes.com
degreef_210_295.indd 1
Met steun van de
Vlaamse minister van Cultuur,
Jeugd, Sport en
Brussel
24/04/09 15:53:51
Hermès
www.hermes.com
ING
www.ing.be
De Greef
www.degreef1848.be
page 31
page 43
page 52
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ADVERTISERS
THE LASTS
pages 56 – 57
56
97
page 67
ADVERTORIAL
THE WORD & MAASMECHELEN VILLAGE
02.
The Word
& Maasmechelen Village
— What if we told you we knew of a place, less
than an hour’s drive from Brussels, where shopping
actually means the client is king, where shopkeepers
are forthcoming without being imposing and, more
importantly, where discounts rule, albeit in style. The
Word drives up to Maasmechelen Village outlet shopping
for a day of recession-busting spending.
First fashion foray was understated knitwear specialist Essentiel, with its airy boutique,
smiley shop attendants and good mix of pieces.
Fixtures and fittings echoing the boutique’s
high street counterpart, extending the brand’s
overall experience to the outlet world, something paramount to the Maasmechelen concept.
Then came Bodum for some inspired tableware
(chunky tea cups going for €5 originally priced
at €12) followed by Diesel with its delmontelined denim racks. If these were supposedly
different retail offerings than what we were
accustomed to in Brussels, it sure didn’t show.
We returned to our adopted gastro-eatery
for lunch, with some digging into their generous pizzas and others snacking on bruschettas, preparing for the rest of the day’s purchasing promenade. This included popping into
G-Star, buying a pair of Converses’ and then
letting loose in Versace, all the while amazed
at how far €100 could actually stretch. They
say ‘recessionistas’ is the new buzzword in
marketing departments the world over, and
this surely is where they come and play.
The fi nishing touch though, is how unlike
a retail outlet this all felt. You won’t have to
elbow your way to the shirt of your choice,
battling it out with crazed housewives with
one too many discount-hunts under their
belts. Nor will you have to remove a piece of
year-old chewing-gum from your high-heels
as we lost count of the amount of street cleaners we saw in the space of a couple of hours.
Why we’ll go back and hope to take you
with us? Because in many ways, and more so
in these harsh economic times, it is a much
better alternative to Paris. All you need to
do is try it once, just once. Trust us, similarly
to us urging you to go to the museum, you’ll
thank us once you get there.
The Facts
Door-to-Door Timing
(down to a second)
52 minutes and 34 seconds
(precise)
Number of Boutiques
95 with national and
international brands
Shopping Bag Count
11
Should have Paid
€ 749
Actually Paid
€ 380
The Other Villages
You Should Know
La Vallée Village in France (40
minutes away from central Paris)
and Bicester Village (one hour
from London)
04.
01.
02.
03.
04.
Spring Pickings
Walking The Strip
In The Bag
The Plan of Attack
Maasmechelen Village
www.maasmechelenvillage.com
www.superdry.be
Superdry
www.superdry.be
page 75
page 81
delvaux.com
page 71
57
03
The day started off to somewhat of a bumpy start.
It was barely past 8h30 on a Saturday morning
and here we were, lost in Brussels’ suburbs,
looking for a friend’s daughter we had to pick
up. Eager to get on our way, we quickly came
to our senses, promptly finding our bearings
and setting sail for Maasmechelen, our Mappy
instructions firmly plastered to the dashboard.
Three turns to the right, follow the sign posting
once the last highway exited ( E314 direction
Leuven / Genk, then Exit 33 ) and you’re there
in 52 minutes and some, door-to-door.
Once arrived, the “wows” and “let me outs”
audible from the backseat predicted a day of
puppy-eyed looks, calculated buys and shop
floor hysteria. From afar, a quaint village of
pale-coloured village houses neatly aligned
along a central high street instantly reminded
us of what we ceased to like about downtown
shopping: the crowds, difficult parking and
an overall sense of unnecessary urgency. We
hadn’t even set foot on the paved stones when
we were already positively impressed by what
we were sure was to be yet another grisly day
out at a retail outlet. We’d be proven wrong
more than a couple of times during the day…
Having fi nally found our other group of
friends, we decided on some necessary dayplanning around a freshly grounded cup of
frothy coffee and morning-scented tea at our
fi rst stop, Gastronomia Cellini. Our orders
taken, we congregate around the Village’s
directory, plotting our descent upon the
high street’s many boutiques. Levi’s, Hugo
Boss, Marithé+Francois Girbaud, Pringle
of Scotland, Petit Bateau, Bodum, Villeroy &
Boch, and the list could go on. If anything, it’d
actually be more difficult to shop here, given
the amount of choice – not to forget the fact
that everything was heavenly discounted.
01.
THE TRAVEL SPECIAL
Newspaper Bag, Men’s “1829” Collection, Designed by Bruno Pieters – Cabas, Vegetable tanned calf – 250 examples
For subscriptions and more information, go to www.thewordmagazine.be
pub_RT_theword.indd 1
22/04/09 17:05:35
Delvaux
www.delvaux.com
The Word
www.thewordmagazine.be
Rouge Tomate
www.rougetomate.com
page 95
page 99
page 100
2/27/2009
6:40:56 PM
www.chanel.com
La Ligne de CHANEL - Belgique Tél. 070 66 55 55 (0,15 €/mn., T.T.C.) - Luxembourg Tél. 900 71 519 (0,03 €/mn., T.T.C.)
A4_1.ai
Ristorante Bocconi, part of the Rocco Forte Collection “Hotel Amigo”
Rue de l’Amigo 1 B-1000 Brussels T +32 2 547 47 15 F +32 2 547 47 67
A NEW DIMENSION OF STYLE
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24/04/09 15:37:32
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Chanel
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98
THE NANO ISSUE
WHAT'S NEXT
Af t er pl ay i n g i t b i g, i t w a s o n l y fi t t i n g to pl ay i t s m a l l , r e sol u t el y t i n y, u n a s h a m e d l y p e t t y.
Hm m , a n d god k now s w e c a n b e p e t t y.
T h e n e i g h bou r hood gos s i p? We h av e ou r s t r e e t sou r c e s.
So, b a c k to ou r p e t t i n e s s.
We’l l t el l you a bou t you r c i t y’s w h i s p er s, t hos e u r b a n l e ge n d s p eopl e a r e n’t too k e e n for you to k now.
We’l l i n t r od u c e you to t h e l i t t l e p eo pl e, t h e o n e s you r a r el y h ea r or s e e, b u t t h a t a r e oh so v i t a l to you r d a i l y r ou t i n e.
We’l l u n c ov er s m a l l-m i n d e d n e s s, lo b b y i n g for a t r u l y n e w-w av e b i p a r t i s a n s h i p. A f r e s h pol i t i c a l m a n i f e s to.
We’l l s q u a b b l e ov er c o n s u m m a t e s, fi g h t for f a s h io n w a r e s l i k e e n r a ge d l i t t l e Ru s s i a n t e e n a ger s.
Oh , a n d w e’l l s i t b a c k a n d w a t c h He t t i e goi n g ge ek-g a g a ov er T h e Na no Is s u e’s De s i g n Sp e c i a l.
T h e Wor d’s Na no Is s u e.
A Soa p Op er a In-T h e-Ma k i n g.
Ou t 5t h Se p t e m b er 2009.
Ty p e f a c e: Mi n u s c u l e b y T hom a s Hu o t-Ma r c h a n d
T h e g lo b a l r u mou r s? We fol low t h e t w e e t s to fol low.
You’ll have to wait until September 5th though, as we’ve decided to pass on doing a July-August Issue,
preferring instead to bring you a September-October one (The Nano Issue), a November one (The Nippon
Issue), then a December one (The Heritage Issue). That’s right; we’ll try our luck at monthly publishing
towards the end of the year, and well, hope for the best.
A NEW DIMENSION OF STYLE
www.chanel.com
La Ligne de CHANEL - Belgique Tél. 070 66 55 55 (0,15 €/mn., T.T.C.) - Luxembourg Tél. 900 71 519 (0,03 €/mn., T.T.C.)

Belgium Thick Skinned Lifestyle Scar Studded Fashion Vast Airs

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