Flanders, Belgium’s Dutch-speaking northern region, stealthily harbors some of the best design in Europe, said Heather Smith MacIsaac in Travel + Leisure. I first experienced Belgium’s “wonderful oddness” four years ago in Brussels, Flanders’s capital. But that city’s flirtations with “avant-garde stylishness” feel overwhelmed by a “peculiar hybrid of international bland and haute guildhall.” A hunch told me that a purer form of Belgian style might be glimpsed if I undertook a tour of Antwerp, Ghent, and Bruges—three northern Flemish cities that are separated by less than 60 miles.
My theory proved true as soon as my train pulled into Antwerp Central Station. Recently, “a bold new gridded superstructure” has been added to the “glorious cathedral” of the original, turn-of-the-20th-century station. “The contrast was revelatory”—just one example of the mix of “deep tradition and smart modernity that I would see again and again the next few days.” The Flemish also have a knack for taking a small space and “transforming it into a sanctuary,” as can be seen in the influential work of designer Axel Vervoordt. Seek out Vervoordt’s namesake art gallery and nearby you’ll find two restaurants he also designed—including the Sir Anthony Van Dijck, where the “roughly plastered walls” and “worn stone floors” still look current 30 years after they were unveiled. A taste of the style’s roots can be found at the Plantin-Moretus Museum, whose “deeply atmospheric rooms” are works of art in themselves.
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