This summer, the Brussels Flower Carpet is back at last!

Due to the pandemic, the 2020 edition was cancelled altogether. In 2021, the organisers intensified their creativity so that floral art lovers could indulge their passion. Despite the public-health restrictions, the Brussels in Bloom event maintained the tradition in a particularly original way.

"After two years of enduring Covid-19, this summer, the Grand-Place, a UNESCO World Heritage site, will dazzle us once again, decked out in a thousand and one colours. The Flower Carpet is a must-see event on the cultural and tourist calendar. The City of Brussels is thrilled to see the begonias and dahlias return",exclaims Delphine Houba, Alderwoman for Culture, Tourism and Big Events in the City of Brussels and President of the Brussels Flower Carpet Association.

Even though it will take place from 12 to 15 August 2022, this edition sounds like the return of spring for the event that embellishes the most beautiful square in the world every two years.

"After two difficult years, during which Brussels in Bloom was still able to go ahead, thus providing a floral attraction in the shopping districts of Brussels, nothing beats the original, of course. The return of the Flower Carpet puts it back on the agenda as a highlight of summer tourism in Brussels. This event also supports the hotel and catering industry and shops in the city centre”, explains Fabian Maingain, Brussels' Alderman for Economic Affairs.

A renaissance and a return to its origins ​

To mark its 50^th anniversary and its 22^nd edition, the Flower Carpet is a nod to the very first creation in 1971. Because the floral legend began in 1970... in Oudenaarde. Brussels Alderwoman, Mrs Van Den Heuvel and Alderman Mr De Rons, were visiting the Flemish city and discovered a stunning carpet created from thousands of flowers. Thus the idea was born: Brussels would have its own Flower Carpet! ​
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The following year, it sprang to life on the Grand-Place. The first edition was the result of a collaboration between Francs-Bourgeois (an association of retailers in the centre of Brussels) and the AVBS (Flanders' Federation of Green Industry), of which Étienne Stautemas was president at the time.

Born in Zottegem in 1927, and a graduate of Ghent Horticultural College, Étienne Stautemas began creating carpets out of begonias, a flower he was truly passionate about, in the early 1950s. At the time, he had designed more than 180. With his team, he emptied the Grand-Place of its cars (it was then used as a car park) and set to work. The rest is history.

The carpets followed one after another and in 1977, Annette Katz took over as head of the organisation for the preparation of Bruocsella, the Brussels millennium edition (1979). Anxious for the event to continue after her, she co-founded the 'Brussels Flower Carpet Association' in 1991. In 2017, she passed the torch on to Richard Poncin.

A copy? No, a contemporary interpretation!

As a tribute to Étienne Stautemas, the 2022 Brussels Flower Carpet reproduces the very first design he created. All the elements present in the original design appear in the 2022 design, including Saint Michael the Archangel and the Belgian Lion.

"This year we have also included other flowers cultivated in Flanders, such as the chrysanthemum, in the floral composition, to emphasise the variety of our ornamental plant cultivation", explains Filip Fontaine, General Director of VLAM, Flanders' Agricultural Marketing Board, a partner of the Flower Carpet and of the 2022 edition.

The title of the 1971 carpet was: Arabesques. The arabesques in question were formed by the natural shapes of leaves and stems, arranged in a decorative manner. The arabesques were the trademark of Étienne Stautemas, who used them right up to his final carpet in 1998.

More than a simple copy, it is thus a reinterpretation, since techniques have naturally evolved. In 1971, the Flower Carpet was made using a 'template' of an arabesque cut out of thick cardboard and transferred thousands of times, using the space between the thumb and little finger to measure the 20 cm needed.

In a nod to Étienne Stautemas' working method, the 20cm has been retained in the new design, but modern techniques allow surface calculations to be produced to the nearest cm², avoiding errors of scale.

The design of the 2022 edition is the result of a collaboration between Roo Aguilar Aguado, a Mexican artist, and Koen Vondenbusch, a student of Étienne Stautemas and his successor Marc Schautteet, who has been working on the Brussels Flower Carpet for 28 years. Both spent more than 280 hours reconstructing the pattern of the 1971 carpet, based on Stautemas' hand-drawn plans.

Tickets for this ephemeral masterpiece will be available as of 3 June via www.flowercarpet.be. Don't miss the great return of the floral heart of Brussels, from 12 to 15 August 2022!

Press contacts: ​ 

Please do not hesitate to call or e-mail us for more information or to request an interview:

Brussels Flower Carpet Association – [email protected] – Annette Katz (+32 (0)475 46 95 33) – Doris Forster (+32 (0)2 512 42 04)

Practical information

Programme:

Tickets:

More info: www.flowercarpet.be

Press kit

Flower Carpet 1971Delphine Houba ©Gaston Batistini

Fabian Maingain ©Gaston BatistiniRichard Poncin ©Gaston Batistini