Brussels, Antwerp: the avant-garde

It's true that, discovered from this third floor, behind the windows of this incredibly well-located, hyper-contemporary flat, which can be privatised for small groups of around thirty people, it's true that, looking down on the decor of Brussels' famous Grand Place, it's impossible to ignore that you're standing in one of the most beautiful squares in the world. On a par with Saint Mark's in Venice or the Concorde in Paris. Even if, having seen it a thousand times in the beautiful pages of history books or travel magazines, you might have imagined it to be a little bigger. But never mind; sung by Victor Hugo or Jean Cocteau, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it shines with all its gold under the oblique rays of the northern sun and combines, in a unified firework display, the flamboyant Gothic of the Town Hall - built between 1402 and 1405 and the only survivor of the bombardment ordered by Louis XIV in 1695 - with the Renaissance style, and even the late Baroque of the other buildings rebuilt shortly after this assassination of our heritage.

But alas, alas, alas, alas, Brussels hardly seems to respond to any kind of urban plan. Everything is haphazard, aberrant, planted haphazardly, gutted by expressways and railway tracks, pierced by tunnels and climbed vertically by buildings with little talent. So it is that a terraced house stands next to the banality of a glass cube, and an Art Nouveau building is ruined by a soulless contraption. And it's the same everywhere, including in the neighbourhood of the European institutions in the capital region, the capital of Flanders, the capital of Belgium and, somewhere, the capital of Europe. That's all there is to it.

But the destructive madness seems to have gone out of fashion - well, a little, not by a long chalk - and is giving way to a slightly more sophisticated vision of the built environment. So it's with a trowel and a trowel, rather than a bulldozer and a trowel truck, that the people of Brussels are reinvesting buildings that were just begging to be brought back to life. They are interpreting, transforming and reappropriating old walls to set up restaurants, cultural venues and spaces that are as festive as they are private.

Welcome refurbishments

These include the beautiful Belga Queen restaurant, set under a glass roof and between the Empire columns of a former merchant bank; the comic strip museum in a former fabric shop designed by the famous architect Victor Horta, which can be hired out for a corporate event; and Wiels, a former reinforced concrete brasserie transformed into an art centre.

Imagination is everywhere.And behind the fifty or so painted walls featuring famous comic strip heroes from the Ligne claire era - here Tintin, there Blake and Mortimer and there again Gaston Lagaffe... - a very contemporary universe is at work; a world of artists, fashion designers, graphic artists, architects and designers, a bubbling court of free spirits putting to rest the clichés that cling to the skin of Brussels in particular and Belgium in general.

So you won't linger too long in front of the tiny Manneken-pis - 957 times smaller than the Eiffel Tower - which, despite everything, you won't be able to escape, especially during a "painted walls" tour that serves as a red thread in a discovery of the city on foot. And you won't be stuffing your face with chips at every meal, or mussels, even if you push open the door of an estaminet, a real one, an old one, a historic one like the "À la mort subite" frequented in its day by Jacques Brel or Maurice Béjart; a kaberdouche with an incredible charm, with weathered walls, stitched mirrors and tables weathered by so many drunken gueuzes. And it's still in these places that you can rediscover the warm, unpretentious identity of Brussels, and toast to love and life with friends for a night as you zim-boum-boum...

For modernity, in Brussels as elsewhere, cannot be understood by confining oneself to its most recent plastic representation. Besides, the city is not huge, and it would take a great deal of imagination to escape its past and its traditions. From the Flemish works in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts to the surrealism of Magritte, you can wander between the many modernist buildings, tumbling over disjointed cobblestones, wandering past the shop windows of Belgian avant-garde designers on Rue Antoine Dansaert and lingering in front of those of the big names in international fashion - Armani, Boss, Agnès B, Delvaux, Bulgari, Burberry... -all lined up shoulder to shoulder on the wide boulevard de Waterloo.

Heroic fairs

Let's begin our city tour with the Museum of Ancient Art and its rooms devoted to the Flemish Primitives. These are marvels painted by Bruegel, the Elder as well as the Younger, both inspired by the almost surrealist depiction of the world by Jérôme Bosch, who is also present in these rooms.

We could spend hours deciphering the works of these rather hallucinatory artists, discovering in these Bruegels en kermesse, a host of characters in action, depicting the daily occupations of medieval peasants almost as if they were in a comic strip. It's all there, the children's games, the fights between the grown-ups, the feasting, the dancing and the singing... in short, part of the Belgian imagination.

As for surrealism, well after a Jerome Bosch who would hardly have been out of place in the movement, we find it in a more modern version in the rooms of an adjoining museum entirely devoted to René Magritte. Spearheaded by his famous "This is not a pipe". In the shop, you can stock up on gifts to take home, including plates, T-shirts and mugs reproducing some of the painter's works. These will stand alongside the traditional chocolates, especially if, like those from Marcolini, they are flavoured with such unexpected aromas as pepper, fennel or coriander.

As far as the latter are concerned, those taking part in an incentive scheme can even try their hand at some explosive mixes at Zaabär, while others - and this is very much in vogue - can take part in a cooking class at Mmmmh! Belgian, of course!

And then there's Art Nouveau. The unique and total way in which architects at the turn of the twentieth century took their inspiration from the world of architecture.^e In the 19th century, architects began to design furniture and buildings, objects and accessories in a style that generally reflected the curves of the plant world. This gave rise to the Modern style in England, Liberty in Italy, the Secession in Vienna, Modernism in Spain and Art Nouveau in France and Belgium. The style is particularly well represented in Brussels, with works by its ubiquitous leader Victor Horta.

In the commune of Ixelles - Brussels is divided into communes, not arrondissements - a second urban-trekking tour of two or three hours will be organised to discover the works of this school. It inevitably begins with a visit to the master's studio residence. As soon as you enter, the effect is striking. The various rooms are arranged around a staircase topped by a glass roof that lets the light in. Everything has curves and arcs... in short, Horta abhors a straight line.

But above all, we soon realise that, in addition to a practical sense that heralded a new era, Horta was almost maniacally interested in detail. Everything in his house is Art Nouveau, from the staircase banister to the locks and door handles... Nevertheless, this movement, which began around 1895, did not survive the First World War. It was probably too expensive, too piecemeal and, to put it bluntly, still too influenced by the stifling bourgeois atmosphere of the late 19th century.^e.

Art nouveau or art deco?

This is why, from 1918 onwards, Art Nouveau gave way to Art Deco, which was lighter and more in tune with the times, and which in turn gave way to Bauhaus, which was even better suited to mass production using more affordable materials. On the Art Deco side, the Villa Empain, commissioned from architect Michel Polak by Louis Empain, who was 22 at the time, gives Brussels a masterpiece of purity of style, lack of frills, powerful volumes enhanced by large bay windows, all complemented on the garden side by a huge swimming pool that caused a sensation in its day... Today, the villa belongs to the Boghossian Foundation and is used as a showcase for temporary exhibitions. It can be reserved for a chic cocktail party, or even a very, very refined gala dinner.

As you can see, Brussels is much more than a cramped capital, governed primarily by the rules of the business and political worlds. But just 45 minutes from the city centre is Antwerp, a Flemish town among Flemish towns, often ignored by corporate groups who prefer a trip to Bruges. And that's a shame. For it is Antwerp that has truly brought Belgium to the forefront of contemporary design. Starting with its fashion designers, nicknamed the "group of six" because their names are so difficult to pronounce, who caused a sensation on the international catwalks in the late 80s. Fashion is so much a part of Antwerp that a museum - the MoMu - has been dedicated to it, the fashion school, the Modeacademie, attracts students from all over the world, and Antwerp Tourism & Congress publishes "fashion walk" itineraries.

Antwerp, Europe's second-largest port after Rotterdam, is a bustling city of just under 500,000 inhabitants, yet no one would call it a provincial town, and it never forgets its prestigious roots - it was the economic capital of Europe in the Middle Ages, as important then as New York is to us today. Unlike Brussels, which seems to have little love for its past, Antwerp does not destroy. Or less. Instead, it rehabilitates, and incidentally... markets.

Procession to the altar

This gives corporate groups access to more or less extravagant private venues, including the sacristy of the Chaplains of the sublime Notre Dame Cathedral or, in the same spirit, the Church of Saint Augustine (AMUZ) - this time no longer used for religious purposes - where concerts, fashion shows or product presentations are organised... all under an almost-real Rubens. An umpteenth Rubens painting, you might say, because the master was so prolific that Antwerp permanently exhibits 52 of his masterpieces throughout the city. Starting with his very well-preserved studio house, a must-see when visiting the Flemish metropolis. A must-see, just like the Plantin-Moretus museum and its printing works, which have been in working order for 440 years, making it one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites, as the oldest printing press in the world.

That's Antwerp. In a relatively small area, old and very old, new and very new, live side by side... A delightful Renaissance garden adjoins a second-hand goods auction, a large medieval square ends at the quays where liners sail up the Scheldt, that a spectacular contemporary warehouse-gallery - the Felix - can be made private for a prestigious dinner, that a rococo room invites you to a gala in a palace that once belonged to Napoleon, while on the ground floor, a chocolatier, Dominique Persoone, as famous as he is iconoclastic, offers a chocolate powder that you can... which caused a sensation at the sixtieth birthday party of Ron Wood, one of the Rolling Stones.

For lovers of contemporary architecture, there are still a few remarkable buildings - which can of course be privatised - such as the MAS (Museum aan de Stroom), set in the middle of the marina, or the Zuiderterras, the work of bOb Van Reeth, a restaurant inspired by the silhouette of a docked boat...

Before leaving the city, under the immense glass roof of what Newsweek considers to be one of the four most beautiful stations in the world, while waiting for the Thalys that will take you back to Paris in two hours, don't forget to take a look at the inside of the building's façade. Stunning. You'd be forgiven for thinking it was the front of a cathedral... And it's on this same train that you'll really get the measure of the journey you've made. Far, so far from the Gare du Nord in Paris.