Staged reconstruction : on the scenography of the IJzertoren’s building site

Whereas the historiography of the IJzertoren has been claimed almost exclusively by scholars of Flemish nationalism and by art historians focusing on the iconography of the tower’s statues, it remains somewhat of a blind spot in architectural and construction history. This is a remarkable feat, not in the least because the IJzertoren memorial is the only architectural object currently included as such in the attainment targets of Flemish primary education. Recent scholarly work has tried to remedy this by approaching the memorial from a construction history perspective, at the same time emphasizing its contribution to the process of nation building. The paper builds upon this work and looks deeper into the operationalization of a so-called “vocabulary of the construction site” into the nationalist rhetoric of the IJzerbedevaartcomité during the annual rallies in the period 1952-65, time frame of the IJzertoren’s reconstruction. Building cranes, site equipment, scaffolding, scale models and reinforcement bars featured prominently throughout these pilgrimages and its visual culture, indicating how the reconstruction embodied the renewed aspirations of the postwar Flemish movement. Operating on different levels, the translation of this formal language of the building site into a staged event impacted considerably on the iconography of the pilgrimages. On one hand, the construction site was used and designed as a stage, as a pulpit and as a canvas. On the other hand, successive pilgrimages centered on milestones in the construction, such as the driving of the first foundation pile, the groundbreaking ceremony or the erection of the maypole. The fetching of building materials even became the central theme of the 1955 pilgrimage. Interestingly, less important events were also celebrated and mediatized, such as the geotechnical survey or the drainage works. The paper aims to assess the impact and modus operandi of this “symbolism of reconstruction” as a metaphor for the Flemish movement’s postwar resurrection, taking advantage of the destruction of the old IJzertoren. This implies that the interplay between the monument and its commemoration is not a one-way process: nationalist ideologies bestowed the bricks and concrete of the IJzertoren with ideology, but also the other way around, since the very act of building and reconstruction fueled nationalist rhetoric.

Publication year:2021

Accessibility:Open