Culture
17:43 20/04/2021
Belgian director Jan Verheyen is preparing to make a new movie about one of the deadliest disasters in Belgian peace-time history: the L’Innovation department store fire of 1967. The fire swept through the chic Brussels department store in minutes, killing 250 people and leaving more than 60 injured.
L’Innovation was the star of Rue Neuve, a multi-storied Art Nouveau building designed by no less than Victor Horta. It opened in 1903, punctuated with many passageways and cubbyholes to “cage” consumers, as Horta himself put it, in keeping with the marketing strategy of the building’s owners.
In the years that followed, the department store was not fully fitted with modern fire safety measures. Gas cannisters were stored on site, and there was no sprinkler system. L’Innovation had also been extended, including a connection with a nearby building, which complicated exit options further.
Living
19:07 21/12/2020
It’s not the first Dunkin Donuts in Brussels, but it will be the biggest: the famous American chain of doughnuts and coffee is opening an outlet on Brussels’ busiest shopping street, Rue Neuve.
The chain opened its first Belgian outlet in Antwerp during the summer and followed it up with one in the Wijnegem shopping mall and one in Brussels-Midi station in September. It opened a second Antwerp location at the weekend and plans several more around the country in the coming months.
“We are delighted to be able to expand in Belgium,” says Dutch business executive Nabil Besali, who holds the franchise rights in the Netherlands and Belgium. “We think that the products really match what Belgian consumers are looking for. The outlets in Antwerp, Wijnegem and in Brussels South have been very successful, even in this difficult Covid period. So we have moved up the opening of this fifth outlet.”
Last Updated:
Belgium Allows Non-essential Shops To Open
Belgium has relaxed some of its lockdown rules and allowed non-essential shops to reopen under restricted conditions on Tuesday, a month after imposing their shutdown in order to contain the surge of the second coronavirus wave.
Belgium has relaxed some of its lockdown rules and allowed non-essential shops to reopen under restricted conditions on Tuesday, a month after imposing their shutdown in order to contain the surge of the second coronavirus wave.
Only three weeks away from Christmas, toy shop owner Sarah De Kinkajou was finally be able to open her store to customers.
Culture
Our pick of Belgium’s best activities – online and off – for the coming week
The Triforium Art Gallery at the Solvay Library hosts the sublime work of Belgian fashion and fine art photographer Geert De Taeye. His highly stylised photographs look like paintings, sometimes recalling a 17th-century Pieta, other times a 1940s Edward Hopper. This exhibition,
Staring Into the Middle Distance: The Sound of Silence, groups images that were either made specifically in response to the coronavirus crisis or that reflect its effect on certain themes close to De Taeye: The death of arts, the abandonment of the feast.