There's an abundance of awardshows for beautiful new buildings and modern architecture. Tomorrow Belgian architects celebrate the Day of Architecture and to honour that Jan Stallaert will professionally tear down Belgium's ugliest building.
The ugliest country of the world
40 years ago Renaat Braem described Belgium as 'a stitched plaid of madness' in his manifesto "the ugliest country of the world" and called the Belgian Order of Architects to join a movement against "the proliferation of architectural dullness"
From october 10 till november 6, 2009 every Belgian can submit a picture of a building he or she would like to tear down.
Ugly buildings make a large portion of the Belgian population truly unhappy.
According to philosopher Alain de Botton one of the great, but often unmentioned, causes of both happiness and misery is the quality of our environment: the kind of walls, chairs, buildings and streets we’re surrounded by. Alain de Botton wrote a book: The architecture of happiness.
Tear down to start again! May the ugliest brick win!
