ART MOUNTAIN

BRUSSELS, 1999

The Art Mountain at the centre of Brussels consists of a number of high-culture institutions gathered around a monumental urbanistic ensemble of squares and stairs. Financially, politically and symbolically it has been created by the Royal Family. The area's beautiful underground spaces are hardly known and inaccessible to the public. Through a limited number of precise and inexpensive interventions (doors, ramps, the occasional tunnel) Maxwan proposes to short-circuit the subterranean routes and spaces. With monuments - like the stained glass Astrid image, and the upside down unknown king - Maxwan wants to rejuvenate the Art Mountain as the symbolic centre of the relationship of the Royal Family and the Belgian nation: 'One nation underground'.