Ceci n'est pas un Saint-Gilles

I think we're Woluwe now...or, how things in Brussels aren't always where you'd expect them to be - or where they should be.

In the 68th minute, when Union St Gilloise’s Swedish beanpole Gustaf Nilsson pokes the ball past the Eintracht Frankfurt goalkeeper to level the game at 2-2, the stadium erupts. Ici, ici, c’est St Gille-uh! - “Here, here, it’s St Gilles” - shout the Union Bhoys from high up in the hardcore section behind the goal. Only, we’re not in St Gilles. We’re in Anderlecht. Union’s Stade Marien isn’t accredited for hosting European matches, so on Thursday nights Union traipse across the canal to the mauve-and-white Lotto Park. But even then, even if it was a Saturday night and Union were playing at home, those chanting fans would still be wrong. Because Union St Gilloise’s home stadium isn’t in St Gilles either. It’s in Forest. But that’s Brussels for you; things aren’t always where they say they are, where they should be, or where they used to be.

It’s not just footballers displaced by Brussels’ arbitrary internal borders. The city’s mourners too are often forced to decamp to far flung corners of the city’s periphery for lack of space in their own communes. Each of Brussels’ 19 communes or municipalities - the borders of which have calcified since the 1940s - has its own municipal graveyard, but they’re not always where you think they should be. If you die in St Josse, you’ll be buried in Schaarbeek. Schaarbeek’s municipal cemetery on the other hand is in next door Evere. St Gilles’ is in Uccle for some reason, and Koekelberg’s is in a different region altogether, across the border in Flemish Dilbeek. While it may be confusing, there are I suppose logical reasons for some of these decisions. Koekelberg and St Josse are two of the smallest and most densely-populated municipalities in Belgium, where housing and roads take priority over pitches and graves. And Union themselves were actually founded in St Gilles, playing the first couple of years of their existence on a field in front of the town hall, before moving first to Uccle and eventually settling on Parc Duden on Forest. 

But that’s only the start of Brussels’ odd geography. Things that should be in one place but are in another are not so strange as things that were once in one place and now find themselves somewhere else altogether. Take the Anspach fountain. Named after the mayor who transformed the city centre in the 1870s, it was originally erected at the centre of Place de Brouckère in 1897 before the construction of the metro in 1973 forced it to relocate to its current location at the former site of Brussels’ fish market. Or how about another previous tenant of Place de Brouckère that also went on a similar wander through the city, or at least a part of it did. Where the Hotel Continental stands now - formerly recognisable by the large Coke sign on its roof - used to be an Augustinian church. When that was knocked down in the 1870s to make way for the new boulevards and the burial of the Zenne river, the fountain was built, the most imposing building on the square was the Augustinian church, they saved its facade, transplanting it onto the front of the then-new the Church of the Holy Trinity up the hill in Ixelles. 

But if you’re talking nomadic structures in Brussels, then you can’t not mention the 1958 Universal Expo. The Atomium isn’t the only temporary building built for the Expo that’s survived intact, but it is one of the few that’s still in its original location. Like spores on the wind, the Expo’s architectural legacy spread itself across Brussels and beyond in the years afterwards. One pavilion ended up in Uccle as a jewellery shop. Another, which had housed the Côte D’Or chocolate company exhibition, is a declassé nightclub on the Brussels-Antwerp road where it faces the old IBM pavilion across the street.The Yugoslavian pavilion is now a school in far-off Wevelgem, and a piece of motorway flyover built to shuttle visitors to the Heizel plateau even ended up as a bridge in Bangkok.

But it’s not just building that move in Brussels. Streets too are not always where they used to be. Like the Borgwal, an old medieval street that once ran from Place Fontainas towards the canal and was home until the 1940s to the last inner city brewery in Brussels. Pull out a map of downtown Brussels and you’ll still find a street called the Borgwal, only it’s now moved a couple of hundred metres closer to the Beursplein. This is what happens when every generation of Brussels politician and city planner has their way with the fabric of their city - things are displaced, demolished or disappeared. Nothing quite fits, but it’s not clear why. Brussels was built on a river, and if you know that then you understand why some of the city is laid out the way it is. But you won’t find the Zenne anywhere, save for a couple of recently reclaimed stretches out in Anderlecht and Haren. It’s the same for the rivers that shaped the city’s annoying hills - the Maalbeek. The Etterbeek. The Roodebeek. Even those that still survive aboveground - the Woluwe and the Molenbeek - are hard to find. 

It all makes for a sometimes strange and discombobulating city. And that’s before we’ve even talked about the streets with one, two, or sometimes even three names, each with a different meaning. The streets that start with one postcode, traverse another, before ending in a third - all in the space of a couple of hundred metres. I think I’m in Jette now. Or am I in Ganshoren? Do the orange bins go out tonight on this side of the street, or is it only for the houses opposite? The city always keeps you guessing. Reality as a contingent experience. If only there was some kind of philosophical approach or attitude that defines itself against the normal perception of reality, that captures the confusion and weirdness of modern life and odd little places like Brussels. 

Anyway.

Back in Anderlecht, the game finishes without another goal. When the ref blows the final whistle the stadium announcer queues up the song played at the end of every Union game - Italian Eurodance hit “Vamos A La Playa”. Of course, Brussels doesn’t have any beaches.

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Miscellaneous Notes

• Well, we turned them over in Frankfurt, didn’t we? Mario Götze, go fuck yourself!

• Also, Union’s next opponent in the Conference League is pretty tasty, isn’t it?

• Now, try as I might, my body seems determined to prevent this from becoming a weekly newsletter. A hit of severe bronchitis had me in my bed for the best part of last week. Paired with a recent renovation-related house move and you have a fallow newsletter week. Will try better, I promise.

• Bruzz’s series on old Brussels cafés continues to deliver - this time close to home in Jette.