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The essence. Maarten Van Severen.
When I first became acquainted with the furniture of the Ghent-based designer Maarten Van Severen, I immediately thought: this is it. A table or a chair with four legs, rectangular, in the right proportions. It is what it is. The essence. It can't really be explained, but I'm going to try anyway.
Blog posts
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Henry van de Velde and his fight for the fourth tower
The three medieval towers in Ghent had stood undisturbed for centuries. Then just over a hundred years ago, a challenger emerged out of nowhere. In concrete, no less, and 64 metres high. Henry van de Velde’s Booktower is now regarded as a modernist masterpiece, but that wasn't always the case.
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The best restaurant? Ask at your local bar
How do you find your ideal place to eat in Ghent? There are plenty of lists, but how reliable are they? And who are they actually for? Tripadvisor has hundreds of entries, yet almost every spot has both lovers and haters. So who do you listen to? I've got a different suggestion: ask the locals.
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Hello Chat, what food is associated with Ghent?
“Ghent has a whole range of typical dishes — some world-famous, others known
only to locals. Would you like me to give you a nice complete list?” Go for it
ChatGPT. Not least because I’m curious about what you consider world-famous. A
reality check never hurts, right?
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The pimples of Joos Vijd
Sometime in the 1420s, Joos Vijd and Elisabeth Borluut commissioned an altarpiece for their private chapel. This would eventually become the greatest painting of the age — the result of years of intensive labour by one of the most acclaimed artists of the Low Countries. The couple must have paid a fortune for this work of art. So why did Van Eyck not depict them in a more flattering manner?
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The conservation in three details
The Ghent Altarpiece has been reborn in the past decade. The conservation campaign gradually revealed that the original had been heavily overpainted – to the extent that the hand of Van Eyck was sometimes hard to find. Perhaps the best way to illustrate our work is by giving a few examples.
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Life as it is: the conservation of The Ghent Altarpiece
Hardly anyone can develop as intense a relationship with The Ghent Altarpiece as we conservators. There we are, working face to face with Van Eyck, right down to each individual brush stroke. That captures your imagination, of course. People often ask me questions about what that feels like and what our working day is like. The answers are below!
