Zurenborg, an Antwerp Suburb

A 15 minute tram-ride from the city centre past the wondrous Central Station and on for another two miles via a long, narrow street of small, struggling and deceased businesses leads to the Draakplaats intersection, then under the railway bridge and into the heart of the strange fin-de-siécle suburb of Zurenborg. These photos come from the Cogels-Osylei district that takes its name from those of the agricultural landowners who spotted an economic opportunity as the city encroached upon their farmland in the 1890s. Although the suburb was developed according to a carefully considered master-plan, the plan did not extend to imposing conformity of architectural style. Instead, local architects and builders created a show-ground offering examples of the newest of contemporary styles alongside every conceivable historical revival to attract a professional and prosperous clientele. Mansion blocks and large townhouses line the silent streets and compete for attention with a spectacular variety of façades applied over mostly conventional interiors. Some developments conformed to a theme – examples include the Four Seasons (described in a post last October), the group of five houses themed according to times of the day, known collectively as Den Tijd (time) and the houses in Waterloostraat that commemorate the Napoleonic wars. A sense that the stylistic eclecticism was driven by commercial considerations has divided architectural critics with many tending to dismiss it as a theatrical exercise of no great merit. This seems to me to miss the point – which is that a happy accident of time, place and motivation has produced a unique, three-dimensional architectural pattern-book for our enjoyment and a perfect illustration of the way that architects simultaneously attempt to look both forward and backwards and achieve some sort of balance. Two brief visits is not enough to put together a comprehensive study – these images are no more than a partial glimpse and to get a better feeling for the innate incongruity, present for the most part a sequence of window surrounds offering a dazzling range of forms and finishes. 

Genius loci: Draakplaats

Most large cities have a location like this one in Antwerp where transport arteries intersect and dominate the sense of place. Six roads converge on this point and pass under the railway arches that carry freight traffic between Brussels, Antwerp and Rotterdam. The sepulchral gloom below the arches provides shelter for passengers waiting for the number 11 tram that links the city centre with the south eastern suburbs. Immediately to the south of Draakplaats is the up-market residential district of Zurenborg and an extensive city bus depot of absolutely zero architectural merit. On the north side, to east and west, are two older buildings into which tramlines run and in the centre, a substantial ornate bar and restaurant. There’s also a private access road leading to the freight yards with two vintage water towers adjacent. All this curious infrastructure adds up to a very strange sense of dislocation from the normal rhythms of the city. Road traffic is unnaturally light and the soundtrack is supplied by the thunderous rumble of trains overhead and the metallic squeal of tram wheels. A small selection of photographs follows below – there will be a future posting on the fantastical architecture of nearby Zurenborg.

Four Seasons

These four substantial townhouses are positioned at each point of a crossroads at the corner of Van Merlen Straat and Waterloo Straat in the Antwerp suburb of Zurenborg. Designed as a group in 1904 by architect Joseph Bascourt, they differ only in detail and each is faced in white glazed brick and displays a pictorial mosaic panel relating to one of the four seasons of the year. The mosaics and wrought iron work are heavily Art Nouveau influenced but the buildings themselves have a more restrained and rectilinear character suggesting the influence of the Vienna Secession, with horizontal bands of coloured brickwork to relieve the monotony. Each house has two tall and eccentrically ornamented oriel windows that also serve to break up the façades. I was informed by a passing local resident that the group had been recently renovated and restored to their original condition.

Hands of the Martyrs

Charlotte Corday's fateful letter of introduction gripped by the hand of the dying Marat - a detail from Jacques-Louis David's saintly portrayal of the assassinated citoyen Marat. The painting is a star attraction in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels and retains its power and fascination as a brilliantly calculated image of political martyrdom. According to Wikipedia the original letter still exists as the property of the Earl of Crawford. The marble hands below are a likeness of those belonging to Bishop Marius Ambrosius Capello (1597-1676) seen on his tomb in Antwerp Cathedral. While the hands of Marat would be deeply stained with ink from decades of subversive journalism, we would expect the hands of the Bishop to be more accustomed to the delivery of blessings and the splashing of holy water. What distinguished Bishop Capello from all his fellow Bishops of Antwerp was his generosity to the poor of the city to whom he bequeathed all his worldly wealth.

Great Railway Stations Number 5 (Part 2): Antwerpen-Centraal

The reconstruction of Antwerpen-Centraal station began in 1998 and the extended and enhanced station opened at the end of 2007. The central platforms were removed (leaving six platforms at ground level) and deep excavation left a void large enough to accommodate two new levels of underground platforms, each level having four platforms. The lowest platforms enabled through trains to continue their journey via a newly constructed 2.36 mile rail tunnel under the city from Berchem to the south and Luchtbal to the north where it regains the surface. This epic remodelling of the station has created some thrilling and vertiginous spatial sensations. The subterranean levels are supported by uncluttered geometry that rests comfortably with the Baroque extravagance of the original station. More about the project can be read at the Railway Technology website.


Comparisons with the transformation of St. Pancras are interesting. Both projects involved creating new levels but while Antwerp has preserved clear sightlines of its architectural magnificence, this did not happen at St. Pancras where security and passenger segregation priorities were placed much higher and resulted in more enclosed spaces. The carefully preserved symmetry and open aspect of Antwerp allows a spectator on the concourse to stare down to the very depths of the station. Likewise, even at the lowest level, the concourse façade can be glimpsed in its distant and dizzying splendour. No such experience is available at St. Pancras where an asymmetrical plan was imposed with the Eurostar platforms pushed to the east. Spatial clarity and integration were also sacrificed at St. Pancras by banishing the Midland Mainline services to a basic box bolted on to the north west of the station. The result is that St. Pancras is a fragmented and discontinuous experience that will always lack the brilliant sense of coherence that Antwerp offers.


Cultural contrasts are also on display. St. Pancras reflects two British obsessions – retail and national security. Entering the station, the initial sensation is one of emerging into a glitzy shopping mall, overshadowed by the gruesome Champagne Bar. Locating the Ticket Sales is a serious challenge in an environment of colossal visual confusion. In Antwerp, a city where trading runs as deep in the collective DNA as anywhere, almost all the retail activity is confined to the arcades that run down the flanks of the station. This sort of discretion would once have been typically British – now we must travel abroad to escape the insolent vulgarity of commercial triumphalism.


Each station offers something unique. Extreme Gothic Revival at St. Pancras and the cavernous space of the foyer in Antwerp are rich and unique experiences. But Antwerp would be my preference, not least because it offers easy ground-level access to the city of which it is part via many exits and entrances while St. Pancras seems to exist in a bubble with hideously constrained access via unnecessarily mean spirited entranceways. A new feature length semi-documentary film Antwerpen-Centraal (2011), directed by Belgian film-maker Peter Krüger celebrates the station taking W G Sebald’s book, Austerlitz as a starting point. Follow this link to read more and to view a fascinating piece of time-lapse photography based on the station.

Great Railway Stations Number 5 (Part 1): Antwerpen-Centraal: a Postcard Tour

In W G Sebald’s book, Austerlitz, the eponymous hero is first encountered in the precincts of this fabulous railway station. The narrator and his new acquaintance, Austerlitz discuss the grandiloquent architecture and recall its origin as an outward expression of the newly emerging colonial power of Belgium at the turn of the twentieth century. There was a pressing need to create a national sense of identity and Léopold II saw the solution in colonial adventures. Wealth extracted from the heart of Africa was lavishly deployed on a number of extravagant imperial projects of which this station was one. The postcard below shows the station building in the final stage of construction – the all-important clock has yet to be installed. Advertising hoardings surround the construction site. Among them is one promoting Lord Lever’s flagship product, Sunlight Soap. In 1911 Lever would visit the Belgian Congo and establish a palm oil processing plant dependant on the easy availability of forced labour, seriously undermining his reputation for philanthropy.


The cast-iron and glass train shed was first to be built between 1895 and 1898 to a design by engineer, Clement van Bogaert. The concourse and foyer were designed by Louis de la Censerie, begun in 1900 and finished in 1905. The prevailing architectural style is idiosyncratic Baroque while the twin design priorities seem to have been scale and decoration. Stone carved scrolls and ribbons, bosses, lions’ heads and swags of fruit and flowers compete for attention, framing the central clock that looks down on the concourse. Beneath the clock is an opulent gilded assemblage of tridents, swords with coiled serpents and cornucopia, overflowing with bounty and treasure. It’s a triumphal statement of wealth and prosperity. In his design de la Censerie took advantage of the elevated position of the train tracks and platforms to create a breathtaking theatrical transition from the concourse to the foyer far below at ground level via massive flights of steps. Standing on the polished marble floor in the foyer the eye can travel upwards, past the four great lantern windows to the full height of the cupola. Physically overwhelmed, the humble traveller is reduced to miniscule proportions by this overarching display of architectural and mercantile power.


The sense of occasion begins as the train approaches the station. For about half a mile the tracks run on a viaduct, flanked by defensive stone walls, punctuated every 10-15 metres by turreted sentry boxes – the impression is that we are arriving at a medieval citadel of power. The postcard supplies a glimpse – the water tower sadly only survives in a stripped down form. Viewed from the city centre and neighbouring streets the station building is a dominant presence and climbs high over its surroundings. Since 2007 the station has no longer been a terminus and passengers on through trains are denied the pleasures of the viaduct as their approach is via a tunnel. Rebuilding the station began in 1998 and the new extended and enhanced station will be the subject of a later post.

Past and Present No. 4: Boerentoren, Antwerp

When built in 1924 this was Europe’s tallest building and the first to exhibit a classic Manhattan profile. Twenty four floors and a steel frame crowned with an advert for De Beukelaer chicory. Completed less than two decades after the Neo-Baroque extravaganza Station-Centraal it seems to belong to a new era while sharing the same ambition and sense of local pride. Embedded in Antwerp’s eclectic cityscape any initial sense of incongruity has faded as the tower, now named for the KBC bank, has taken on a period air with cuboid caryatids over the main entrance. Shells and a V2 rocket struck the tower during the last war and in 1976 it was extended by an additional two floors. There are more details to be found at emporis.com.