Tuesday, February 8, 2011

The palace Poelaert adrift

In some offices, it rains on the clerks. The cornices are invaded by wild plants, trees or even real. We dare not sealed off a scaffolding on the facade there are three decades out of fear does not imply that part of the walls. A few weeks ago, a large block of stone broke off and was smashed in a parking lot below, fortunately empty on this Saturday morning.

The magnificent white marble staircase outside, leading to the Assize Court, is the kingdom of pigeons and a few homeless people who spend the night. The courthouse in Brussels seems to be a parable of Belgium threatened to falter, pending renewal, an endangered beauty. The large stone, potentially fatal, is now surrounded by barricades Nadar until someone takes care of that other "routine" ...

The palace in the heart of the Belgian capital, is nevertheless an extraordinary example of this architecture called "Babylon" of the nineteenth century. Wanted by King Leopold II, he was entrusted to architect Joseph Poelaert, rendering, say, half-mad by his project: he s'étripait with engineers, which he refused to confide his plans.

There is a lack of adjectives to describe this work, but can be summarized in a few figures: 26 000 m2, a mile front, a cupola, which rises 30 meters high. The building, built around a metal frame, has thirty entries. Its lobby, concourse, is larger than a station concourse. In its basement are situated on three levels, all exhibits, all seized items, all archives and all acts of civil status in recent decades.

Employees who live in this strange world say fear that someday someone seizes weapons ... and explosives it contains. Others say "feel the drain" when they return home, as the place is unsafe. Still others claim that they were devoured by some strange insects. Upstairs, where are grouped thirty services, courts and tribunals, including the largest in the kingdom, there are other evils that plague.

Part of judges is not completed, but the judges faced some 800 000 records. The appellate court establishes the business until 2014, the court of first instance is "drifting," said Jean-Pierre Buyle, lawyer and president of the French Bar. Meanwhile, while it is impossible to communicate by email with a graft, the political debate ...

regionalization of justice. If this project ever materialized, a French couple living in a Flemish town 10 kilometers from Brussels can no longer divorce in French. In the bilingual capital, rules of procedure may be different within the same palace as a function of the "linguistic gender" people.

And no one knows how it would consider a criminal band with both Flemish and Francophone ... Moreover, the Palace of Poelaert would probably be pampered and delivered food to the hordes of tourists, so the Reichstag. In Belgium, it is seen as heresy, a further concern, a subject of dispute between linguistic communities.

It has been renovated over the last fifty years, and the political world divided, does not know what to do with the mammoth, it was allowed to languish. Stefaan De Clerck, the current Minister (Christian Democratic and Flemish) of justice, have asked President (Francophone socialist) of the Brussels region if it did not want it.

Horror! ... Brussels does not have a penny through, inter alia, the stinginess of Flanders, who denied the means to fulfill his duties as capital ... As in Belgium, everything ends up commissions, one of them has since had the idea to launch, thanks to the recent presidency "turning" of the EU, a vast concourse.

What palace? A museum, an ice rink, a circus, responded a hundred authors. A prize will be awarded soon, and the "best" projects exhibited at the Palais ... of Fine Arts. But one imagines that the government will retain one. He hesitates, in fact, two scenarios for the palate Poelaert: "Everything but justice" or "Justice, but only in part." "Impossible!" Said Mr Buyle.

"If this building does not remain a palace devoted entirely to justice, I think it is better to destroy it." French and Dutch bars in the city have united to defend this idea and return to "their" palace a series of courts and services that have already left for neighboring buildings that look like hospitals furnished by Ikea.

The lawyers have held open houses and mobilized for the monumental work place Poelaert be renovated. One of their best supporters is, surprisingly, Abbé Jacques van der Biest, called "Father of the Marolles. It is up to this popular neighborhood, a real historical heart of the city, that Leopold II had wanted to install the courthouse story to impress the little people.

On opening day, around were totally wrecked. A century and a half later, the little people has become the first defender of the place he is not alone in finding magic. stroobants @ bbc. en Jean-Pierre Stroobants Article published in the edition of 08.02.11

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