Balat gets his Paradise Lost

Alphonse Balat, architect to the king, gets his own 'Paradise Lost'

From 5 September, Meise Botanic Garden, just a stone's throw from Brussels, immerses itself for an entire autumn in the universe of Alphonse Balat. This nineteenth-century architect built the Royal Greenhouses of Laeken and showed his young collaborator Victor Horta the way toward art nouveau.

Under the title Paradise Lost? 200 Years of Vision on Nature and Architecture, his iconic greenhouses become the backdrop for an exhibition on glass, iron and our view of nature – with an extension in Kortrijk, just over an hour's train ride from Brussels.

Architect to nobility and king

Balat was born in 1818 in Gochenée, in the province of Namur, and studied architecture at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. He began his career as a classicist, but the rise of new building materials such as iron and glass forced him to radically rethink his style. As architect to King Leopold II, he designed, among other things, the Royal Greenhouses of Laeken (1874–1890), the first Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels – later the Bozar building on Regentschapsstraat – and parts of the Royal Palace, including the Throne Room and the Grand Staircase.

At least as important is who trained under him. The young Victor Horta worked for several years as Balat's collaborator, before going on to invent art nouveau using that same combination of iron, glass and plant motifs. In this way, Balat unknowingly helped lay the groundwork for a style that would make Brussels world-famous. He died in 1895 in Ixelles, aged 76.

Three greenhouses full of history

The exhibition is spread across three historic greenhouses of the Botanic Garden: the Franklinia Pavilion (the Green Ark), the Citrus Orangery, and the Balat Greenhouse itself, also known as the Crown Greenhouse.

Balat designed his ornate glass-and-steel greenhouse in 1854. It is considered one of the oldest greenhouses of this kind in Belgium. For Balat, the design served as a technical and aesthetic trial run for his absolute masterpiece: the monumental Royal Greenhouses of Laeken. This greenhouse was not originally built for Meise, but for Brussels Zoo in Leopold Park. Balat designed it to cultivate and display the then newly discovered giant water lily (Victoria amazonica). After passing through the Brussels Botanical Garden, the historic greenhouse eventually moved to Meise Botanic Garden, where, following a thorough restoration, it can still be admired today. The Balat Greenhouse is so iconic to the history of Belgian botanical science and architecture that its ornate shape has been worked into the official logo of Meise Botanic Garden.

The exhibition is further structured in three parts. The Glass Revolution outlines how the combination of iron and glass turned greenhouse architecture on its head from 1825 onward, with Balat as one of its great innovators. In Ode to the Winter Garden, three contemporary artists: graphic artist François Schuiten, artist Hans Soenen and architect-draughtsman Piet Bekaert, draw inspiration from that same universe of glass, light and plant growth. Building the Future carries the question through to today: how do contemporary architects view the relationship between nature and architecture?

From right on Brussels' doorstep to Kortrijk

It's no coincidence that Meise Botanic Garden carries the subtitle "Botanic Garden Brussels." Until 1939 it was located in the heart of the city, in the Kruidtuin, the building that today houses the cultural centre Le Botanique, after which it moved to the Bouchout castle estate in Meise, a few kilometres north of the capital. Paradise Lost? runs from 5 September through 25 October.

Anyone who hasn't had their fill of Balat's world heritage after Meise can travel on to Kortrijk. There, from 12 September to 8 November, Galerie Art and Design Productions presents the parallel exhibition Inspired By – Alphonse Balat. More than 35 works by the same Schuiten, Soenen and Bekaert are on display here, this time in monumental drawings and paintings in which architecture balances between construction and landscape. It is the very first time the three artists have exhibited together around Balat's architectural universe.

More information about the exhibition in Meise is available from Plantentuin Meise, and about the Kortrijk leg from Art and Design Productions.

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