I thought I'd start peppering the forum with some of my older Belgian stuff. I haven't been on a trip over there for more than four years now so completely lost touch with what is good and what is no longer there really, but I'd love to take one more trip for shits and giggles.
The University of Liege purchased the site of an old 13th-century Abbey in 1924 and began building a huge campus, and in the process demolished much of the abbey buildings. More were damaged by bombing in WW2 but rebuilt to their old design in 1952. The university was closed in 2007 and redevelopment began in 2014 with many of the buildings retained. The site is composed of five enormous art deco buildings plus a power station building in the same design. It really is a remarkable collection of modernist architecture and a location I had always longed to see as art deco is my absolute favourite architectural period, so to finally get into here was an awesome feeling especially having heard some horror stories about security here in the past with dogs etc. Luckily all we had to contend with on a bitterly cold day was a busy roundabout, a low wall and some razor wire. They really do love their razor wire in Belgium!
We managed to get into two of the five buildings on site before moving on, we could have quite easily stayed there the entire day though - and in hindsight part of me wishes we had done because no sooner had we left and found some lunch in a local supermarket a full on blizzard sprung up out of nowhere and the snow just kept coming, burying the entire region under feet of snow.
By the time I got around to exploring here it was battered and bashed around but retained it's sense of imposing grandeur both inside and out, and remains one of my favourite locations to this day.
Thanks for looking
The University of Liege purchased the site of an old 13th-century Abbey in 1924 and began building a huge campus, and in the process demolished much of the abbey buildings. More were damaged by bombing in WW2 but rebuilt to their old design in 1952. The university was closed in 2007 and redevelopment began in 2014 with many of the buildings retained. The site is composed of five enormous art deco buildings plus a power station building in the same design. It really is a remarkable collection of modernist architecture and a location I had always longed to see as art deco is my absolute favourite architectural period, so to finally get into here was an awesome feeling especially having heard some horror stories about security here in the past with dogs etc. Luckily all we had to contend with on a bitterly cold day was a busy roundabout, a low wall and some razor wire. They really do love their razor wire in Belgium!
We managed to get into two of the five buildings on site before moving on, we could have quite easily stayed there the entire day though - and in hindsight part of me wishes we had done because no sooner had we left and found some lunch in a local supermarket a full on blizzard sprung up out of nowhere and the snow just kept coming, burying the entire region under feet of snow.
By the time I got around to exploring here it was battered and bashed around but retained it's sense of imposing grandeur both inside and out, and remains one of my favourite locations to this day.
Thanks for looking
