The small Belgian city of Bruges (Brugge) has a compact historic center that retains the authentic fabric and character of the Middle Ages. The city is located on the flat plain of the Flanders countryside and is connected by river to the North Sea, just a few kilometers away. The river and a series of canals connected the inner core of the city to the world beyond, and it was a prosperous trading and cultural center through the late Middle Ages. After an economic decline starting about 1500 (silting in the river reduced access to the sea) its architectural fabric was left largely intact – it escaped the Industrial Age, the destruction of world wars, and the 20th century urban planning projects that impacted so many other cities.
If you’re fascinated by architecture there’s a lot to attract your attention here – the Brick Gothic construction, the stepped gables of the houses facing the narrow streets, and the beautifully maintained details of the facades that make you wonder if some historic preservation authority oversees every little bit of work that’s done here. The streets and little bridges arching over the canals are uniformly paved with small square Belgian blocks in various patterns. On my visit I loved seeing craftsmen resetting the square pavers in streets that had been taken up for utility or reconstruction work – arranging the stones in precise patterns on sand beds, with gaps for mortar to follow. The city and its buildings are more than a Disneyland of picturesqueness – you can see that the craftmanship that maintains it all is at work everyday on the facades and roofs and little details of masonry, wood, paints, and metal. Beautiful!
As I wandered around I took photos at all scales – facades, decorative details, aging tones of masonry and mortar, and wonderfully shiny painted trims. I’ve mostly concentrated this group of photos, though, on a series of streetscapes that show the quiet character of old lanes and canals, away from the bustle of the tourist center. These quieter photos help to imagine what it might have felt like to live in and walk through this place centuries ago.
Before getting on to the quieter streets, here’s a look at the Belfry of Bruges, a medieval bell tower that rises at one edge of the Market Square (Markt), the busy tourist center of Bruges. It was initially constructed in the 13th century, with modifications and additions over the centuries since. At the time of my visit you could climb up narrow stairs past large clockworks and carillon bells to the top.Architectural styles later than the Middle Ages do make appearances in the city center, especially around the Markt and at sites of important municipal buildings. Here an eighteenth century facade looks down this street.Brickwork and gables predominate on this winding lane adjacent to a narrow canal. Stone was not readily available for construction in this region, so most streets freature brick facades and ornamentation. Looking down the street, on the left you can see the nice cadence that the repeating series of tall windows forms.A tall four-story building stands at this small square adjacent to a canal. The stepped brickwork on the gable of the small roof dormer relates to the series of little parapets along the top of the facade. Half-quatrefoils of brick decorate the arches above the third-floor windows.The little white house on the left side of the canal occupies a narrow slice of land at the beginning of a stretch of houses continuing down that side of the street. A tree below the house, at the edge of a small garden, reaches over the canal. You can see me outlined in the shadow of the bridge on the right.Three rows of young trees in a little park adjacent to the Dijver Canal catch the morning sunlight. A tourist boat on the canal has just past by. The tower of the Church of Our Lady (Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk) pokes up on the left – at almost 400 feet high it is one of the tallest brickwork towers in the world. Here a wide canal intersection gives space to look at the buildings facing the water from a distance. There’s an endless variety of facades, stepped gables, and window detail across the small city center.Looking down the length of a canal, the orange tile roofs of the large houses on the right are lit by the late-day sun and reflected in the water below. Houses front streets on both sides of the canal. A gently sloped bridge crosses the canal over a low arch.A smaller and less prosperous-looking canal has smaller houses and a street on only one side. The structures on the right are the sides or backs of houses facing other streets.In this photograph you can see that the tall white three-story facade of this building has been added to create the impression of a building style from a later era than the original. As was true with the false facades of the American West, a facade like this gives the look of a building that is larger than it really is – the rear roof slopes down steeply not far behind the facade.The walls of this buiding have been coated with plaster to create a more finished look than the brick beneath, which you can see in the side wall above. Steep clay tile roofs, repeated in the gabled buildings beyond, are ubiquitous in the city. The dark painted bands at the street level are consistent aound the town – probably for making dirt splattered up from the streets less visible. New construction is highly regulated in the historic center of Bruges. Here, on the right, a 2006 addition to the College of Europe designed by Xaveer De Geyter creates quite a contrast to the small-scale brick buildings across the lane. The new building’s facade of polished white prefabricated concrete has a pattern of deep recesses that helps break down its large scale.On this little lane we have some facades on the left that have been modernized facing off against a variety of original brick facades on the right, with gas lanterns intact. Down the lane and across the rise of a little bridge crossing a canal the faces of narrow townhouses keep watch.I liked the soft lighting and monochrome nature of this scene, with its textures and variations of whites and greys. The red no-parking sign is the only color making an appearance here. A little sign below it indicates that bikes and small motorbikes are allowed.I stepped back from the little intersection of the previous photograph to catch this scene, which gives a completely different effect. Farther back, but from the same angle, you can now see the larger facade, with its grey-tile roof peeking past the shrouded scaffolding on the right. A line of red tiles running across the ridge of the roof adds a bit of color.Here we have a stretch of older buildings in need of some attention. The series of gables top weather-worn facades that are casting a rather stodgy grumpy look down on the slight curve of the street. These buildings on the left, facing a canal, also needed attention – and they got it! The stepped gables are being supported with wood timbers and large clamps during the rebuilding of the roofs. New windows are also being installed.This is another quiet scene in which you can notice the textures of the pavers and bricks, and their subtle greys and tans – along with a few red traffic signs, the leafy fringes of window boxes, and the large yellow sign on the scaffolded building beyond.
