One of Europe’s Most Beautiful Secret Spots is ‘A District for Madmen’
Plus: The Michelin Guide goes into the hotel world.
Few hidden gems are so flagrantly flamboyant as the triangle-shaped confines of Cogels-Osylei. Found in the Zurenborg district just across the train tracks emanating from Antwerp, it’s block after block of Belle Epoque bourgeois fantasy homes. Mansions in Art Nouveau, Venetian, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, and Vienna Secession styles are all arrayed on picture-perfect cobblestone streets–just waiting for peripatetic visitors to wander and find them.
I was one such lucky wanderer myself. A half-dozen years ago I was in Antwerp for the first time. I toured Rubens’s house (satisfying in a way his paintings will never be for me) and ogled at the central train station. I visited the Plantin-Moretus Museum, and when I ventured to check out the modern wonders of Zaha Hadid’s Port House and the MAS Museum, they felt like the perfect contrast to the heavily embellished guild halls in Antwerp’s central square.
Tired of checklist museums and attractions, an adventitious turn took me further from the center. I passed under some railroad tracks and stumbled on what seemed to me a fantasy land. Knowing nothing of the neighborhood’s story, I just wandered awestruck up and down the lanes of Cogels-Osylei, Waterloo, Transvaal, and van Merlen, and finished by grabbing a bite at a cute little pizzeria, Bellini, that I spotted when I first entered the area. My fall travels this year brought me back to Antwerp, one of the last cities in Europe that has all a visitor could want to see but doesn’t feel like a “tourist” city. I knew I’d need to return to Cogels-Osylei. But first, I wanted to learn more about how this place came to be.
If you look at an aerial map of Antwerp, you’ll notice the city hugs the Scheldt River in a series of concentric arcs. The innermost defines the limits of the historic city and largely follows the line of 16th-century fortifications erected while Antwerp lived under the thumb of the Spanish empire. The next ring, which rubs against Cogels-Osylei, reflects fortifications erected in the 19th century after Belgium achieved independence and needed new defenses to protect its neutral status.
It also represents the swelling of Antwerp in that period as Belgium’s urban centers once again became some of the richest in Europe. The Scheldt toll (a fee that the neighboring Dutch government charged all ships headed to Antwerp) was lifted, and a rejuvenated Antwerp hosted a world’s fair in 1885 and 1894. From 1856 to the turn of the century, the city’s population more than doubled. Neighborhoods seemed to spring up overnight and riches could be had for those positioned to take advantage. Especially lucrative would be a development that could attract the city’s growing ranks of nouveau riche. One that satisfied their need to flaunt their wealth without straining too far their conservative tendencies.
“Flanders’ most ostentatious and arrogant residential street,” as one historian designated Cogels-Osylei, did just that.
There are gothic palaces (Cogels-Osylei 68) teetering against Vienna Secession-esque villas (Number 66, dubbed Villa Marie-Therese). Townhouses hidden in a massive pastiche of the Venetian palace Ca’ d’Oro (numbers 65-71) and other villas redolent of what is called Stick Style in the U.S. (number 56-58). Homes that look as if they might anthropomorphize and swallow you whole (Waterloostraat 11) until you look closely and realize the mosaic wrapped around its “eyes” is of the Battle of Waterloo. A neo-Grec palatial daydream replete with caryatids and pedimental sculptures plays host to a half-dozen houses (numbers 23-35 on Waterloostraat). If you won’t be making it to Brussels anytime soon you can even gaze upon a copy of the iconic Saint-Cyr House (Cogels-Osylei 80).
On my first visit, I fell in love with the Sunflower House (Cogels-Osylei 50), a swirling white house with clever design elements like a recessed bay. The second time around, some of the simpler ones called to me. Like a flower in a field of weeds, any one of these houses would stand out on a block of middling architecture. But in this cultivated garden, Joseph Bascourt’s Morning Star (Cogels-Osylei 55) might be overlooked at first. However, its trapezoidal shape redolent of an Egyptian temple has made it one of the more beloved. I found myself especially charmed by the Iris House (Cogels-Osylei 44), a three-level home of pure whimsy–no curves, asymmetric from top to bottom with a gable at the top cut off two-thirds of the way.
Where I was once content to just gawk, this visit I appreciated the preserved details. Banisters whose twists and turns make you realize why some called Art Nouveau “spaghetti style,” doors and windows formed into shapes you’ll likely never see again, mosaics that glitter, and wood carvings that bring somber Gothic edifices to life. (Transvaalstraat 59-61 is home to the particularly emotive carved devils that support third-level balconies.)
“Spaghetti style” wasn’t the only nickname for Art Nouveau. “Tapeworm style” was an even more censorious label, and a reminder that while beloved today, it’s a miracle this neighborhood still exists.
From Paris to the London countryside, Newport’s waterfront to Mexico City during the Porfiriato, revival style architecture was what money—new and old—wanted to make a splash. So the companies behind the development of Cogels-Osylei and its neighboring streets in the 1890s gave their customers exactly what they wanted—dozens of urban villas built each year, designed by a handful of architects in a variety of revival styles. For the Belgians eager to flex their return to wealth, the houses were immensely popular, either immediately bought or rented. Empty lots also sold for the wealthy to build what they wanted—and while the conservative Catholic developers weren’t keen on Art Nouveau, these individual owners would erect magnificent homes in that style. It became an “Elysium of the genteel bourgeoisie,” wrote one author. Ironically, given the heterogeneity of exterior styles, many of the houses had stripped-down, conventional interiors that often didn’t match the outside. From neighbor to neighbor one could find identical floors, tiling, fireplaces, and bathrooms.
The whole thing, said the poet Benno Bannard, is “one big trompe-l’oeil.”
Intellectuals, however, hated it.
“The Cogels-Osylei gives us something to see and to loathe,” wrote one critic in the early 20th century. “A hodgepodge, a stew, a veritable pot-pourri of all conceivable and unthinkable…Romanesque twins with pseudo-Hellenic, Gothic with Renaissance, Academy Style with would-be-Modern Style!” It made the whole thing, he said, “Flanders’ most ostentatious and arrogant residential street.”
In 1934, when the author Jozef Muls visited the painter Hippolyte Daeye (Cogels-Osylei 45) he described Daeye’s home “as a banal mansion in a vaguely Gothic style.” The architects and developers, writes historian and guide Alex Elaut in his book on the area, were accused of “[confusing] opulence with beauty and affectation with good taste.”
In a pattern all too familiar to architectural history lovers, the tastes of the wealthy outgrew the neighborhood as the 20th century wore on. Cogels-Osylei suffered as the houses proved too expensive for the less wealthy that now owned them. In the 1960s speculators circled, recognizing the value of the land, and a couple of the buildings were torn down. The local council also was in favor of them being destroyed for a more dense, modern neighborhood.
Like many places in the 1960s filled with revival-style architecture, there was little love and indeed some embarrassment. These blocks of fanciful creations were called “a district for madmen.”
In a surprising twist, Renaat Braem, protégé of Corbusier and titan of Belgian modernism, put forth a proposal to turn the district into a monument worthy of preservation. A politician named Frans Van Mechelen, who was the minister for Dutch culture in the early 70s, took up the cause to save the area. He succeeded: In 1980, a royal decree safeguarded the area and a few years later, 170 houses were named protected monuments.
“Classicism and eclecticism should be condemned in principle. But there is still something to be said for that street,” said Braem. “Perhaps it arose from a love for the past, or at least from the urge to create something with a certain dignity.” The fruits of those desires—the over-the-top revival works of the late 19th and early 20th century—are beloved once again, and few areas so utterly capture that perpetual quest for homes of dignity and beauty quite like these elegant streets on what used to be the outskirts of Antwerp.
If you’re going to Antwerp and feel like splurging, Botanic Sanctuary is incredible and its steel-bottom pool one of the most memorable I’ve swum in of late. (Madonna called it home while in Antwerp last fall for her concert.)
It is, however, wildly expensive for the city and another luxury hotel like Sapphire House (an Autograph Collection from Marriott) is significantly less. If you’re looking for a great place to eat, The Finch is a must. In a more artsy area of the city, its labneh is something I still dream about. And, finally, while shopping in this mini-fashion capital is great, the vintage clothing finds are even better. Rosier 41 and Labels Inc were two great options.
DEPARTMENT OF GRIEVANCES
The WiFi on the Eurostar train from London to Paris is embarrassingly bad. Especially considering the cost of tickets has ballooned to almost laughable figures (my one-way ticket to Paris, booked months in advance, was $300).
Michelin (of the famed food rating guides) has been rolling out its awards for hotels this year, and Italy was the latest region released. I do think there’s a massive need for a trusted and true hotel review system. The aggregated versions on TripAdvisor and Google have serious flaws—one being that I don’t have the same taste as most of the people who would take the time to write those online reviews. However, given how many times I’ve eaten at Michelin-star restaurants that were puffed-up magic shows, I’m skeptical about their curation. Exhibit A is that the Aman in New York achieved their highest rating for hotels. I don’t know anybody who loves this property, and instead it is seen more as a disappointment than anything.
I’ve been wondering lately what the next HBA brand would be that cool or fancy places carry in their bathrooms. When I was younger it was Malin + Goetz or Kiehl’s. Then it was Aesop and Le Labo. But those two are now often found in huge chain hotels, and their cachet has arguably diminished as a result. I thought for some time it might be Diptyque or maybe D.S. & Durga, but I’ve been told by folks in the industry that the latter are inflexible about wholesale pricing (maybe that’s changed!). But Equinox seems to think it will be Grown Alchemist, and they’re swapping out all their Kiehl’s products for it.
This New York Times piece about how algorithms are helping airlines save time and insane amounts of fuel each year is fascinating–but good lord, we really are just calling anything that involves machine learning A.I., huh?
TRAVEL NEWS
Michelin just awarded its first Michelin star for a Mexican taco truck.
Record profits at Emirates and Singapore Airlines meant nice bonuses for employees this week.
A tunnel connecting Europe with North Africa is a possibility.
There’s a new airline startup on the way—Zoom!
Killer whales are back at it attacking and sinking sailing yachts!