Arentshuis: Visionary Urban Plans

In 1902, the first major Flemish Primitives exhibition was held in Bruges city centre. In the same year, the Brit Ebenezer Howard published his influential Garden Cities of Tomorrow, a call for the construction of garden cities, the beginning of modern urban planning. It was the first response to the incredible population growth in Europe.

Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright and Bauhaus, etc. all formulated urbanistic responses to the population explosion in the Twenties. In Belgium Renaat Braem [1910-2001] designed his visionary urban plans.

The Belgian modernists Huib Hoste [1881-1957] and Paul Amaury Michel [1912-1988] designed a revolutionary redevelopment plan for the south-west of Bruges. The exhibition in the Arentshuis confronts these plans with later visions of the modernist urban development by Oswald Mathias Ungers [1926-2007].

The plans by Huib Hoste and Paul Amaury Michel proposed connecting the existing Bruges station with 't Zand and the outskirts of the city via a wide avenue and a new construction of two to four storeys built on pillars. There was a mix of upper class and workers' houses, with green zones and recreational areas with a concert hall and exhibition hall at the centre. The radical modernist plan also proposed the demolition of a couple of districts with dilapidated, unhealthy but historic houses. However the project was never implemented. The exhibition, in association with the Sint-Lukas (St. Luke's) Archive, Brussels consists of plans, publications and documents by both Hoste and Michel.

In 1933, Huib Hoste, in association with Le Corbusier, the latter's cousin Pierre Jeanneret and Felix Loquet, designed an urbanisation plan for Antwerp's Linkeroever. It applies the ideas for La Ville Radieuse by Le Corbusier, with lots of green areas and sports infrastructure and motorised and pedestrian traffic strictly separated.

However, the international panel, which included Henry Van de Velde and Victor Horta, found the plans somewhat deluded. "Numerous contenders throw themselves recklessly into the domain of dreams and decide that Antwerp will be the metropolis of Europe and will count no less than 2,500,000 inhabitants."

In 1935, Huib Hoste also applied Le Corbusier's principles to a revolutionary development plan for Antwerp's Rechteroever, which he designed together with Renaat Braem. The project - a stepping stone to the Bruges plan - proposes that an impoverished part of the old city be demolished and that only the historic, truly important parts of the city be preserved. In Bruges too, the historically important is preserved while small, old and unhealthy houses are replaced by appealing dwellings in the countryside. With his planned concert hall Hoste was seventy years ahead of the building that would eventually occupy the site in 2002. However the exhibition hall he proposed remains an unfulfilled wish for Bruges.

In 1977, Oswald Mathias Ungers in association with Rem Koolhaas published the manifesto The City in the City -Berlin: A Green Archipelago. It presents concepts and models for the new city, applied in the former West Berlin. The empty sites, resulting from the population's departure, demolished buildings and the disappearance of industry, became green areas. The concept of the 'Archipels' also forms the basis for the locations of the triennial in Bruges. Ungers does not aspire to a historic reconstruction but a new polycentric urban landscape. He completely redrew the plans after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In association with the Ungers Archiv für Architekturwissenschaft UAA Koln an exhibition that was held in New York in 1976 was reconstructed in Bruges: 'City Metaphors', O.M. Ungers' vision of the city as a metaphor. City maps that are mirrored in photographs and records of nature, conjure up all kinds of unexpected associations, including with the characteristic Bruges egg shape.

Stanza - The Intelllgent City

In the hall of the Arentshuis the British artist Stanza displays his work Body 01000010 011011110110010001111001. It is based on a 3D scan of the artist and is made from LEDs, motors, cables and specially designed electronics. The Body responds to differences in temperature, light, air pressure, sound, as they appear in South London, where the artist's network of sensors is located. In the run up to the triennial The Nemesis Machine installation could also be seen in Arentshuis. The Nemesis Machine is a miniature city. The installation visualises life in the metropolis based on data and videotapes sent from London. Therefore the city constructed in Bruges using electronic components reflects what is happening on the other side of the Channel in real time. Stanza's paintings reveal the city's complexity, which is intrinsically universal with its grids and patterns. Cities resemble each other, cities grow towards each other, cities become one: the metropolis becomes a megalopolis and oecumenopolis.