Setting up an info garden
Besides six previous protections (landscapes, monuments, townscape, etc.), the beguinage has been recognised as a World Heritage Site for 25 years this year.
The beguinage is an ancient, well-preserved and enclosed site with a distinctly urban character in a typical, local style. It is also an exceptional, green oasis with a unique biotope.
The beguinage bears witness to 800 years of tradition as a city of women. Beguines have lived here since the early 13th century: independent, religious women who combined an active life with spirituality.
Its religious and cultural heritage, meaning and traditions provide a place of inspiration and meaning for thinkers, writers, artists and visitors. It is an exceptional place of silence in this vibrant city.
But the spirit of the place is under pressure. Besides the uncertainty about a continued religious presence that strongly defines the character of the silence place, over-tourism in particular is causing increasing degradation of the silence place and damage to the green biotope. Preserving the site with its traditions and its own rhythm is a challenge for the local community and politics.
Bruges Foundation realises communication project
Like many Bruges residents, Bruges Foundation believes that prudent management of the site is necessary so that the 'spirit of the place' can be preserved untouched into the future.
But knowing is understanding and that is why Bruges Foundation believes there is a need for a place on the site where the particular tangible but also intangible heritage values of the Beguinage can be pointed out, together with the history of the site.
Accordingly, in early 2023, Bruges Foundation proposed to the city of Bruges to realise a public project on this site.
A lot of visitors, both local and international, sometimes have no idea what the beguinage stands for, what beguines were, and what is the significance of this place in the city today.
With this project, Bruges Foundation, in consultation with the residents of the beguinage, wants to provide a wide range of visitors with information about the history, the role of the beguine in the Bruges context, and the unique 'spirit of the place' of this beguinage.
This is why Bruges Foundation is creating an informative exhibition aimed at local and Flemish and Dutch-speaking visitors, who will be explained the various aspects of beguine life and the site through a brief and systematic overview.
We want to introduce international audiences to the same content but through recorded stories that can be listened to via a QR code.
Permission to realise this project, at the expense of Bruges Foundation, was granted at the Board of Mayor and Aldermen's meeting on 8 May 2023.
"Hear how silence whispers a story, a name"
The inner garden is closed off from the public courtyard by a long blind garden wall. On that garden wall to the square, Brugge Foundation is also realising a meaningful language artwork.
Rather than an information board referring to the exhibition, we want to have a text painted on this wall that is in line with the 'spirit of the place', and that underlines the silence character.
Keywords here then are silence, introspection, tranquillity, religious life, ...
This short text could evoke or make visitors aware of this "surely exceptional spirit of the place"...
Peter Verhelst, Bruges poet, wrote "Hear how silence whispers a story, a name" for this spot.
The text is elaborated Maud Bekaert, Bruges calligrapher, so the content is further enhanced by the visual calligraphic value.
This calligraphy text also reiterates Bruges' role as a centre of calligraphy.
A future for the Beguinage
Together with residents and city policymakers, Bruges Foundation wants to initiate a vision around the future of this site.
The city of Bruges is already starting the drafting of a master plan that should lead to a supported vision and approach for this exceptional place.
