proposal for an intervention at the old beguinage of Tongeren, Belgium
The former churchyard of the beguinage in Tongeren is today a small lawn intersected by a footpath. It is primarily used to let dogs do what they have to do. The design aims to reveal the meaning of this place once again, and to highlight its potential qualities. This will be achieved by both subtly re-designing the area and by positioning a series of structures in it.
The re-design primarily involves removing the path, and taking out the hedges on the side flanked by the façades and repositioning them on the street side. Thus the façade of the beguinage church comes into its own, the valuable gravestones and crosses become visible, and the hedge on the street side follows the trajectory of the former beguinage wall and lends the place a greater intimacy. The removal of the path also means that the lawn can once again become a more enclosed space or a place to rest, rather than a shortcut. Finally, transparent structures fashioned from folded steel rods will be positioned in the central section of the lawn. These allude to the ironwork around old graves, suggesting that they are a residue from the past and therefore belong there. Due to its precarious arrangement and erratic distortion, this work makes a fragile impression and hence confronts the visitor – insofar as the allusion to the grave has not done so already – with his own vulnerability. The artwork thus continues a long tradition of the memento mori: a reminder that death is the ultimate disruption.
