behind the fafade, we could even call it
the city's soul. In order to get a glimpse
thereof it is important to go beyond the
here and now. We tend to cherish illu
sions and we can count the unchangeable
city to be one of the most liked; as if it
is a monument directly connecting us to
the past. However, our collective memory
has a limited horizon. No matter how
authentic we may consider Middelburg,
it is in no way original, in the sense of
having survived the years unchanged. De
Lange Jan and the Abdij did not always
look as they do today; they have both been
through many metamorphoses. And the
city's centre was battered beyond sub
mission during the bombings of World
War II. Reconstruction started immedi
ately after the fire, under the leadership
of architects from the so-called Delftse
School. The main characteristics of this
school - functional, dignified, subdued,
moderate - were a good match for post
war Middelburg. Newly built structures
embraced the historic buildings in a nat
ural way. They were severely damaged,
but not beyond repair. These new develop
ments erased virtually all traces of the big
fire that had scourged the city. The scars
of war, which had an enormous impact on
Middelburg, have nearly all disappeared.
Yet upon closer inspection one notices a
caesura, most noticeably in the scale of
the buildings. De Delftse School architec
ture in a sense healed the city, by creating
a befitting structure with all the right
measurements, and we now feel the city
to be authentic.
The legitimacy of that feeling is in
no way hindered by the fact that the
present-day city is merely a fafade, from
a historical point of view. Every city is a
make-belief reality and Middelburg is no
exception. Every city appears how it was
expected to look at different moments in
time. Middelburg is the result of many
decisions taken over the centuries; it is up
to historiography to judge whether these
were either carefully or foolishly taken.
In the passing of time many things have
been altered in Middelburg, for reasons
that might have been clear then, but have
now become completely obscure.
Middelburg imagined
In its present form Middelburg is far less
inevitable than we like to assume. Despite
the illusion of solid constructions and
the determined way in which the streets
and squares define the layout of the city,
it could all just as easily have looked
completely different. That potential, yet
non-existent, Middelburg is also part of
the city's reality. Thus the concept of a
city is fluid, for the very reason that the
city is limitless and in constant flux, even
though we might not even be aware of
it. Alongside the physical city of today,
in which we work and live, we also expe
rience the imagined city; the imagined
elements that were destroyed or rebuilt
and live on only in our memories, and the
Middelburg that was never built, which
existed once on the drawing table, but
now lives on in the archives. There is also
the imagined Middelburg that exists in
artists' and town-planners' dreams for the
future. In all, this is Middelburg as a con
cept, an accumulation of ideas that feed
into everyday reality.
An example of this is the Podio del
Mondo per I'Arte. The famed Dutch artist
Marinus Boezem appropriated the space
underneath the former Graanbeurs on
the Damplein in 1976 and turned it into a
podium for conceptual art. In the course
of the following fifteen years a wide vari
ety of artists inscribed the pavement with
their ideas. This set an imagination in
motion, enlarging the mental space of
the city ad infinitum. Middelburg wel
comes these types of ideas, evident from
the numerous art manifestations and
experimental music performances that
have taken place there in recent decades.
A set of internationally renowned artists
performed and lectured in Middelburg
between 1977 and 1987. This series was
called Forum. Middelburg was also put on
the international art map by the Vleeshal,
a space for experimental art in the City
Hall that has given many a young art
ist the opportunity to show their work,
many of whom became famous later on
in their careers. One can certainly say
that Middelburg cherishes its tradition
of a broad-minded attitude towards the
arts and its receptiveness to the ideas and
reflections inherent to art. Fagade 2012
builds on that tradition. It transforms
Middelburg into a subject of reflection; a
city as a collection of realities that are only
partly visible.
Genius Loci
That which lives behind this complex
fa£ade of the city is, what the Romans
called, the genius loci: the protective spirit
of a place. This spirit has to remain alive
in order for the city to truly be authentic.
In their search for the authentic Middel
burg, fourteen artists selected by Thom
Schaar, coordinator of Fine Arts, in con
sultation with Kathrin Ginsberg, director
of CBK Zeeland, have deconstructed and
rethought the imagined Middelburg. This
has resulted in fourteen installations at
different locations throughout the city.
They reveal something of the city within;
the invisible metaphysical reality that
hides behind its fa£ade. And so, just as a
fa£ade cannot exist without the building
behind it, a present-day city can only live
if it has the knowledge of, and if it reflects
on, the world behind the things. This is
how the genius loci, in organic connection
with the visible outside, makes Middel
burg into an authentic city. After all, if
truth were to be found only in the fa£ade,
then nothing would be what it is and
everything would be as it appears.
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