Magazine N°162
GOOD LIVING AND ENTREPRENEURIAL CREATIVITY
Brussels isn't a pretty place. There's the Grand' Place and Victor Horta's house, a plethora of other modernist masterpieces and also a sublime 1930s villa, the Villa Empain; and so much more, a multitude of cultural treasures and architectural achievements.
But the whole thing is thrown together in an urbanity that is badly fichured, ignoring codes, with buildings anywhere and everywhere, motorways cutting through the city, interchanges and tunnels, buildings erected in a spirit of 'who will win the ugly prize'.
Maybe that's just the way Brussels is, but what a great place to live. How appreciable is this general laid-back attitude, this lack of pretension, this useless and haughty snobbery that plays a large part in the poor image that Paris sometimes has abroad. This unique art of living, or rather the art of living well, whether you are Belgian or foreign, young or old, French expatriate, employee of the European Community or businessman on a professional trip, this art of living is the positive point put forward by almost everyone.
All the same, little by little, the city's rather peculiar 70s aesthetic is disappearing. First of all, in the European Quarter, a disembodied horror that is becoming more human, welcoming bistros, casual restaurants and even housing in what used to be a no-man's-land at night. The same goes for the Canal district, which has been going hyper-contemporary since the 2010s. With public spaces, cafés, restaurants, art galleries, new-generation coworking spaces and, soon, a museum, all housed in former industrial premises, the area is home to rooftop vegetable gardens, technological solutions for education, health, the climate, ecology and, as Brussels is wont to say, the joy of living.
As a result, more and more highly-qualified young people are settling in the city, thriving in an economy that is essentially tertiary, in companies with an international focus, but also in new technologies, with 33% of Belgian start-ups based in Brussels. So, with a quality of life that everyone agrees on, and jobs that are largely geared towards the future, it's easy to see why Europe's young people want to live up there, high up in the mists of the North.
Serge Barret, Editor-in-Chief
