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High Road to Culture in Flanders and the Netherlands
In the 19th century, a very particular kind of tourist came to Flanders: foreigners looking for a quiet place to fight.
Private residence, Russian embassy, and headquarters of a TV station. Villa Empain in Brussels has been all of these.
The oldest working planetarium in the world can be found in Franeker in the Dutch province of Friesland: the Royal Eise Eisinga Planetarium.
Between 1600 and 1900, Dutch was the dominant European language in Japan. A new book examines how this affected the local culture and society.
The original paint layer has been exposed again, revealing details that have remained hidden for many years.
Cultural historian Lotte Jensen recounts how she has seen the consequences of climate change with her own eyes.
The Belgian-Bolivian artist translates form and material into sound, building objects in clay and playing them to produce atmospheric soundscapes.
They may not paint a cheerful picture of man and the world, but the books of Willem Frederik Hermans are worth re-reading, says writer Henk Pröpper.
Which objects are we talking about exactly? Who claims them? And what should be done with them in the country of origin?
In this interview, the Surinamese writer talks about her texts, her language, and her homeland.
In the late eighteenth century, various ships departed from hotspot Ostend to the coasts of Africa to exchange goods for people.
'Angels of Amsterdam' is a virtual reality experience based on the true stories of four 17th century women fighting for their rights.
The Rotterdam-based duo explores the human dimension in technology with interactive design.
The road to success of the iconic Book Tower in Ghent has been all but linear, as historian Ruben Mantels writes in 'Towers of Books'.
An estimated 600,000 enslaved Africans were traded by the Dutch from West Africa to the Atlantic. Almost half of them were shipped by the West India Company.
Looking for exciting places in the Low Countries, British journalist Derek Blyth stumbled upon the castle where baroque painter Rubens spent the last years of his life.
One hundred years ago, Paul van Ostaijen wrote his famous poetry collection 'Bezette Stad' (Occupied City). Dutch poet Iduna Paalman finds in the occupied city of Van Ostaijen the blueprint for the infected city of today.
Thanks to letters captured by English privateers, historical linguists can investigate how ordinary people wrote in the Dutch Republic.
In this podcast, we explore some of the most notorious folk tales and legends from Flanders and the Netherlands.
This debut is a dreamy novel about the love of trees and the loneliness of surviving in a new country.
Technical analysis and research link the painting to the important 16th-century still-life painter Joachim Beuckelaer.
Antwerp painter Jules Schmalzigaug (1882-1917) deserves more prominence in the canon of the European avant-garde.
Thanks to the travels of musicians between France and Flanders, the border city Tournai was able to develop as an international music centre in the late Middle Ages.
What did the past smell like? And how does scent influence our culture? Biologist and philosopher Geerdt Magiels takes us to the stinking seventeenth century and to the nearly scent-free Low Countries of today.
His illustrations reveal the quality of timeless design, particularly the graphic spectacle of his cartoon biographies of Rembrandt and Warhol.
In the 13th century, wool was the most important commodity in Flanders, with Bruges as the epicentre of the wool trade. The industry determined the political, social and economic relations and left its mark on architecture.
The bad boy of Dutch cinema came to the Cannes Film Festival to please with a lesbian nun drama.
