Publication
[S.l.] Casterman 1992
ISBN
9030385707 / 9789030385707
Language
Collection
Series
Description
Another retro-SF city, full of classic European elements a la Jules Verne. This world has been so successful in Europe as to elicit a life-size roving exhibition recreating it, with even metro stations in Paris and Brussels designed after it. A long awaited title in the obscure and mysterious Cities of the Fantastic series. In full-colour throughout.
Subjects
User reviews
LibraryThing member Widsith
Brüsel is the obscure city which most obviously parallels a city in our own world, and Brüsel is the album which is perhaps most directly a satire on the ‘real’ world.
The main target is ‘Brusselisation’ (bruxellisation), a term applied, in Wikipedia's apposite citation, to ‘the
François Schuiten grew up in Brussels and his parents were both architects; in Brüsel the whole story is magnified and retold as it were through a fairground mirror. Brüsel, as the story begins, is a pretty town with crooked streets and a tram network, surmounted by the Palais des Trois Pouvoirs. But ‘progress’ is in the air. The city authorities are in thrall to smarmy town planner Freddy de Vrouw, and city funds are drained and redirected into realising his futuristic vision of what a modern city should be like.
Of course, things do not quite work out according to the blueprints. Running alongside this architectural satire is a general critique of misdirected ‘progress’ – one main character is a ‘plastic florist’ who makes synthetic flowers – and all of it is funneled into a Kafka-esque medical thriller too, involving an underwritten female lead who contrives to lose her clothes every time she trips over.
‘Nous avons tous été malades…’ one character says. ‘Oui, malades du progrès !’ comes the reply. One of Schuiten's most Schuitenesque albums, beautifully drawn, this is another solid entry to the series. This 2008 reissue includes an introductory essay about Brussels in which Benoît Peeters outlines some of the main points of Brusselisation, and explains the key transformations that served to turn Brussels into Brüsel.
The main target is ‘Brusselisation’ (bruxellisation), a term applied, in Wikipedia's apposite citation, to ‘the
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indiscriminate and careless introduction of modern high-rise buildings into gentrified neighbourhoods’. It takes its name from the way Brussels bulldozed half of its historic heritage in the 1950s so they could ‘modernise’ ahead of Expo 58. Most notoriously, Viktor Horta's art-nouveau masterpiece the Maison du Peuple was replaced by a beige skyscraper.François Schuiten grew up in Brussels and his parents were both architects; in Brüsel the whole story is magnified and retold as it were through a fairground mirror. Brüsel, as the story begins, is a pretty town with crooked streets and a tram network, surmounted by the Palais des Trois Pouvoirs. But ‘progress’ is in the air. The city authorities are in thrall to smarmy town planner Freddy de Vrouw, and city funds are drained and redirected into realising his futuristic vision of what a modern city should be like.
Of course, things do not quite work out according to the blueprints. Running alongside this architectural satire is a general critique of misdirected ‘progress’ – one main character is a ‘plastic florist’ who makes synthetic flowers – and all of it is funneled into a Kafka-esque medical thriller too, involving an underwritten female lead who contrives to lose her clothes every time she trips over.
‘Nous avons tous été malades…’ one character says. ‘Oui, malades du progrès !’ comes the reply. One of Schuiten's most Schuitenesque albums, beautifully drawn, this is another solid entry to the series. This 2008 reissue includes an introductory essay about Brussels in which Benoît Peeters outlines some of the main points of Brusselisation, and explains the key transformations that served to turn Brussels into Brüsel.
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