A journey to one-of-a-kind place: Blooming Grand-Place in Brussels

Every two years in August, Brussels’s Grand-Place turns into a huge begonia carpet. The biannual event is already a well-established tradition since 1971, when it has first happened. The Grand-Place wears a living carpet made out of flowers which are alive for a long week-end.

This year the event opens on 15 August and we look forward to admiring the new forms, shapes and colours describing a new theme. More on this forthcoming event in a new article, which I am going to publish in a couple of days.

Stauteman, a landscape architect, is acknowledged as the initiator of the carpet. Making a carpet is a one year job, which begins with selecting a relevant theme, planning the project carefully, designing and modelling a prototype.

The florists manage to finalise the huge carpet in just a few hours. They first place rolled turf on the ground to provide a closer growing environment. The turf is watered to feed the flowers, in order to keep them alive for the event days.

As Brussels is also famous for its windy and rainy weather the designers found a solution to overcome any troubles of getting the flowers blown around. They florists increase the density, so one can count an incredible amount of flowers concentrated in just one small area.

Since we moved to Brussels we were lucky to admire seven event editions. Each carpet featured a different theme. We saw each of them and we pictured it from different angles to be able to enjoy every details of the floral compositions.

Flower Carpet masterpieces and themes we admired in Brussels:

2000: Brussels’ lace (pictures taken with an analogue camera)

2000: Brussels’ lace

2002: Composition inspired by the Versailles gardens

2002: Composition inspired by the Versailles gardens

2004: Art Nouveau

2004: Art Nouveau

2006: Homage to Galileo; The carpet was composed of nine rotating ornaments to celebrate Galileo, who kept saying: And yet it moves (Eppur si muove)

2006: Homage to Galileo

2008: French tapestry

2008: French tapestry

2010: Honouring Brussels and the Belgian presidency of the EU

2010: Honouring Brussels and the Belgian presidency of the EU

2012: African themes

2012: African themes