Finally we start seeing flowers everywhere in the street and on the fields so that’s why we dedicate this post to master florist Thierry Boutemy who just moved and opened a new shop in Brussels next to our favorite bakery Le Saint-Aulay (remember the gayest bakery in town?). Read the rest of this entry »
We discovered VII Sept-Bruxelles through the Nationa(a)l Store, a pop-up project by two Belgian-lovers last year in December. A quirky pineapple-shape handbag caught our eye. What was it? Who was this? It was Sept Bruxelles, the accessory label created by Cécile De Jaegher. Read the rest of this entry »
This time of the year Brussels is flooded with art lovers and art collectors from all over the world. Yes, it’s Art Brussels and thanks to the success and reputation of Belgium’s art mothership a whole series of art events is organized around the city. Thanks to SLICK, the biggest off art fair of Art Brussels, who came to Brussels for the first time last year, the area around WIELS in the commune of Forest has become the real off neighbourhood of Art Brussels. Read the rest of this entry »
If you know the American reality show Million Dollar Decorator, you know that the taste of some self-proclaimed interior designers can be doubtful. By showing you the work of Belgian decorator Lionel Jadot, we want to erase all bad memories of over-designed and super-sized Los Angeles homes. Instead you’ll see the work of a guy who’s passionate about story telling through materials, compositions and colours! Read the rest of this entry »
A cabinet of curiosities is an encyclopedic collection in Renaissance Europe of types of objects whose categorial boundaries were yet to be defined. Modern terminology would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history, geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, art works and antiquities. Read the rest of this entry »
Every morning, thousands of people walk into their office without noticing the architecture of the building. Nothing could be further from the truth for the employees who work in the recently refurbished Alpha Tower. Credits go to LOW architects who transformed the boring 60′s office building situated near the Brussels-north railway station into a remarkable energy friendly landmark! Read the rest of this entry »
We love SaintPaul, we have few words for it. The color, the prints, the playfullness,… We discovered it in the beginning of I Love Belgium and just like our lil’ blog SaintPaul grew and evolved being sold all over the world, from Paris to Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Jeddah, Berlin, Barcelona, Brussels and more…in shops such as Le Bon Marché and Bergdorf & Goodman. Read the rest of this entry »
With all the hype created for the H&M Maison Martin Margiela collection, people tend to forget that Belgium also has other designers. Yes there’s Dries, yes there’s Ann, yes there’s Raf, yes there’s A.F. Vandevorst,… But there’s a young wolfpack who are doing it for themselves even in difficult times as these. Read the rest of this entry »
Britain has Banksy, Belgium has Bonom! Since 2006, Bonom showcases his own impressive style: going for big, remarkable, sketch-like, fluid lines that end up in animal and skeleton drawings. For these he searches grey and basic buildings in the city centre of Brussels. Hanging from a rope he paints the night away. This gave Bonom the past years the unofficial title of a town legend. Read the rest of this entry »
Who says industrial buildings can’t be pretty? Ask graphic designer turned artist Luc Van Maldern and he’ll convince you of the opposite with his highly-stylized prints. Since 1978, Luc celebrates the beauty of imaginary and virtual industrial buildings without any element of melancholia. Read the rest of this entry »
With art fairs Art On Paper, Fotofever and art festival Nuit Blanche ahead, another art-packed weekend awaits Brussels! But what to see? The I Love Belgium team recommends Stéphane Mandelbaum’s retrospective. The work of Stéphane, murdered at the age of 25, is an exceptional display of a natural tormented talent! In his frenzied search for an identity, Stéphane obsessively and repetitively committed to paper anything which came into his head. Read the rest of this entry »
The I Love Belgium team has big love for Brussels based designer Linda Topic. The one-off a kind bed she designed is still one of our best read articles and we wouldn’t mind having her modular floor covering (made with leftovers from wooden floors and carpets) in our living room. Het latest design is a fabric called Dreamcatcher. Read the rest of this entry »
Ampersand House is a gallery of art and design located in a maison de maître in central Brussels. Owners Kathryn Smith and Ike Udechuku, an Australian-British couple curate the gallery as a constantly evolving living environment mixing vintage, contemporary and prototype work to inspire a dialogue with and between collectors and creatives. The I Love Belgium team discovered this beauty awhile ago. It’s a shame that we didn’t post about it sooner. Read the rest of this entry »
The first Monday in September : summer holidays are officially over and a new social season is ushered in with a crowded agenda! If you have still some blank pages, then Design September Brussels will help you fill the gaps. Out of the 80 events around the city, the I Love Belgium team highlights “Colour./Kleur.“. Read the rest of this entry »
In a dense residential and historical area of down town Brussels, a new house conversion drew the attention of the I Love Belgium team. It was architecture office V+ who reconceptualized an existing complexing, boarding two streets and existing out of several architectural elements. Next to the traditional town house, the site houses an industrial building placed in the courtyard and a second 18th century industrial building, which today serves as an auction house. Read the rest of this entry »
Before we start this post, we have some explaining to do! As you may have noticed, we were quite silent these last few weeks. But we have a legit reason for that: we renovated and moved into a thirties house. Brussels, the place we are based, and Belgium has a nice selection of interbellum architecture (in between wars). That’s why we show you a small selection of a big archive. Read the rest of this entry »
As the Belgian population density increases, architects and developers are looking towards the conversions of industrial buildings. Why? Well, there’s a a great stock of interesting but run-down and empty buildings in every city. So if we work towards a denser urban center, we’ll must go for interesting space at a good price in a walkable community. One more reason for the I Love Belgium team to look at two standouts among the many noteworthy conversions Read the rest of this entry »
When hearing penthouse, we immediately think of the movie Pretty Woman (that’s normal, no?) in which Richard Gere stays in an impressive penthouse. When he invites our heroine up, she gasps in awe of the splendor of ‘his’ place. It’s this kind of luxury you can expect from the penthouse of Housestories in Brussels. And while there’s nothing wrong with the penthouse where Richard and Julia had some wonderful times, the Art Deco Penthouse we’re talking about has a lot more style and is more suitable for original souls with a taste for great design. Read the rest of this entry »
Jogging alongside the quays in Antwerp, yes sometimes we do a little exercise, we were confronted with the 19,8 miles (3,2 kilometers) long wall of poetry from Peter Holvoet-Hanssen. Reading it while running, poetry turned out to be the ideal motivation to put in that extra mile. Charmed as we were with Holvoet-Hanssens tribute to Antwerp, we started thinking about other cities and their ways to incorporate poetry into the city landscape. And how poetry can change the urban view… Read the rest of this entry »
For our 500th blogpost, the I Love Belgium team decided to give you what you love the most: surrealist topics! Although what we’re going to show may remind you of the Fictions series by Filip Dujardin, photographer Xavier Delory‘s Urban Forms series takes a whole different approach! Read the rest of this entry »
