I took the opportunity of the long Easter weekend to do something I should have done years ago: go and have a look inside the House of European History and share my thoughts. Readers of our daily bulletins come from all four corners of Europe and beyond it, but if they ever happen to be passing through Brussels, there are far worse things they could do with their time than spend an hour or three of it in this fascinating place. It also gets a mention in most recent tourist guides.
Where is this House to be found? Its official address is 135 rue Belliard. Everybody who lives in Brussels is highly familiar with rue Belliard, particularly those who live in the European Quarter, but very few know who Belliard was. Born in Fontenay (Vendée) in 1760, he served the French Revolution as a soldier under the orders of Dumouriez, then the Empire, through a series of daring escapades. Rising to the rank of General, he was demoted upon the return of Louis XVIII, but returned to prominence later when he threw in his lot with the July Monarchy. The creation of Belgium saw him made the French ambassador to Brussels. He was involved in the French military skirmish that scattered the Dutch troops, paving the way for the treaty of November 1831 [af1] which gave Belgian her independence. On 28 January 1832, Augustin-Daniel Belliard left the Royal Palace and dropped down dead in the nearby park. The fledgling State showed its gratitude by erecting a statue to him in the vicinity and by naming a road parallel to the rue de la Loi in his memory.
With Belliard, who saw battle in Italy, Prussia, Russia and at Waterloo, we are already right in the thick of European history.
At number 135, visitors enter a beautiful park, complete with a pond full of ducks bobbing about and many striking buildings, such as the Jacqmain school and the Solvay library. The names ‘quartier Léopold’ and ‘parc Léopold’ date back to town development initiatives that began in 1837 on the orders of the first King of the Belgians. These days, the park, still popular with pedestrians, separates the Brussels site of the European Parliament from the place Jourdan area.
The American businessman and philanthropist George Eastman (1854-1932) was not content with setting up the company Kodak and taking it to enormous success. He set up a foundation to support, amongst other causes, the democratisation of dental care. With this aim in mind, the Eastman Foundation built several medical institutes in the United States and in various European cities. In Brussels, a hill in the Leopold Park was the chosen site. The Swiss architect Michel Polak was given the job of designing and constructing the building in 1933. The Eastman Dental Clinic for Disadvantaged Children was officially opened by King Leopold III and Queen Astrid of Sweden in July 1935 (just one month later, Queen Astrid lost her life in a car crash in Switzerland).
The medical activities continued for several decades and then the building, which remained in the ownership of the Brussels Centre Public D’ Action Sociale (CPAS), was leased to the European communities to establish office spaces, in the 1980s. In view of its cultural heritage and aesthetic value (as a notable art deco building), it was deserving of far better.
Hans-Gert Pöttering, a German politician and member of the CDU, became a member of the European Parliament in the first direct elections of 1979. On 16 January 2007, he was elected President of the European Parliament. In his inaugural speech on 14 February of that year, he stressed the need to strengthen ties with the European citizens and proposed the creation of a House of European History, which he felt should be located at the seat of the institutions as part of a network of similar establishments in the member states (see EUROPE 9365/4). It is highly unlikely that he would have launched this idea unless he was already certain of his support.
When leaving office on 7 May 2009, shortly before the European elections, Pöttering thanked the colleagues who had lent their support to his project, particularly Spanish Socialist Miguel Angel Martinez (see EUROPE 9896/2).
The year 2008 was a particularly auspicious one for the project. Firstly, the European Parliament took out a 99-year lease on the ‘Eastman Building’, as it was known at the time, from the CPAS. Secondly, a committee of experts, chaired by Prof Hans Walter Hütter (President of the Foundation of the House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany), was set up and submitted a report entitled ‘Guidelines for a House of European History’.
After the European elections, the Parliament formally decided that the ‘Eastman Building’ would serve as the planned House. In July 2009, an international architecture competition was launched to renovate the premises and make the necessary adaptations for its future incarnation. This competition was won by a Franco-German-Belgian consortium (Chaix & Morel, JSWD Architekten and TPF) in March 2011.
Meanwhile, a team was appointed within the Directorate General for Communication of the European Parliament, to be led by Taja Vovk Van Gaal, a highly experienced Slovenian historian and expert on museum design. This team was assisted by a scientific committee made up of renowned specialists and chaired by Prof Wlodzimierz Borodzej, a Polish historian and writer specialising in contemporary European history.
During the period 2011-2016, the total cost of the investment was estimated in the region of 56 million euros. This would be borne principally by the European Parliament and partially by the European Commission. The costs were broken down as follows: 31 million for the renovation and extension of the building (adding three glazed storeys), 21.4 million for the permanent exhibition plus the first temporary exhibition and 3.75 million to build the collection.
At the end of March 2017, European Parliament went live with a new website, ‘My House of European History’, featuring contributions from citizens from the whole of Europe (see EUROPE 11759/22). It was a kind of taster: the House of European History was formally opened on 4 May 2017, at a ceremony led by the President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani. Two days later, it opened its doors to the general public. (To be continued)
Renaud Denuit