It was love at first sight.
More than 10 years ago, André Demesmaeker, an architect for the Belgian government, was asked to investigate a collapsed ceiling at the Palace of Justice, a 19th-century behemoth in the heart of Brussels that houses the country’s sprawling judicial system and has since collapsed separately for decades .
“I opened a door I haven’t seen in ages,” Mr. Demesmaeker recently recalled. “I entered this attic and had to start climbing to explore the area.”
In doing so – and on subsequent visits to the vast building – Mr. Demesmaeker discovered a tangle of rooms and vestibules, some of which were occupied by lawyers or judges. others leave and rot. The floors, roof and walls were falling apart. Water had penetrated inside, so the fungus grew profusely. Sometimes homeless people would fall asleep and drink alcohol next to stacks of archived legal documents. Many corridors stank of alcohol and urine.
Time seemed to stand still in some rooms: old magazines, a coat, a coffee pot. As if the people who worked there just disappeared one morning.
At this point, in 2010, the building had been in the restoration phase since 1984, for so long that the surrounding scaffolding had failed, requiring its own refurbishment. Some called the building “Palace of Scaffolding”.
But where others saw an eyesore and a bureaucratic nightmare, Herr Demesmaeker saw beauty, a treasure trove of history’s mysteries.
Four years later, Mr. Demesmaeker, now 52, was commissioned to lead the restoration of the colossal stone facade. The scaffolding has been renovated and is expected to be dismantled soon; The construction of the facade is about to begin. Discussions are currently underway on work on the vast interior, which is being monitored by other officials. He hopes the renovation of the outdoor area will be completed by 2030, in time for Belgium’s bicentenary.
Shrugging his shoulders shyly or cracking jokes when talking about himself or his work, Mr. Demesmaeker is undeterred by the burden of almost 40 years of renovation work. He couldn’t hide his excitement the other day as he led a two-hour expedition through about 20 rooms like an explorer in search of lost riches.
“It’s what I love: stomping, crawling, searching, investigating,” he said, eyes tingling, while examining gutters down spiral staircases.
Opened in 1883, the palace was once the tallest building in the world. Today it occupies nine square blocks in central Brussels and is a crumbling monument to Belgium’s notorious bureaucracy.
The country has three official languages (Flemish, French and German); six parliaments (one federal parliament and five regional parliaments representing different constituencies); more than a dozen political parties; and a separatist movement. Its politics are so fragile that at times there was no functioning national government for almost two years.
So Mr. Demesmaeker’s job seems ideal for a master bureaucrat, a multilingual charmer who is adept at dealing with the political forces that want to push his project or steal his budget.
Mr. Demesmaeker admits that this is not the case.
He admitted he’s not particularly good at languages and said he’s often as confused as anyone about the different levels of government. He is separated with two sons and describes himself as a couch potato. “I was born in Brussels. I grew up in Brussels and if I’m lucky I could even die in Brussels,” he said.
As a teenager, he wanted to be a pharmacist but didn’t want to be stuck in a lab. He was drawn to architecture because he liked the idea of being outside on construction sites.
He always loved unraveling mysteries, the hows and whys of things, as he put it. “My father would buy a new radio. I would take it apart,” he said.
He started his career as a freelance architect, but at the age of 29 he joined the Belgian building authority, which manages all state property and is responsible for the preservation of historic buildings, for more professional stability.
Mr. Demesmaeker has never given an interview before. During his recent visit to the palace, he intermittently leaned into a reporter’s tape recorder and introduced his topics of conversation. More often, however, he blushed and whispered confessions – such as when he said he couldn’t explain why the palace’s restoration had taken so long.
One factor is the general bureaucracy. Two long periods without a government did not help. A former civil servant has been arrested on corruption charges. The company that erected the scaffolding went bankrupt. And the building authority rotated between ministries during various government reshuffles.
Jean-Pierre Buyle, chairman of the Poelaert Foundation, which is working to protect the building, said ministers critical to the project’s success were often from the Flanders region and had little interest in funding a project in Brussels.
Mr. Demesmaeker sees the project as his life’s work, perhaps in reference to the building’s original architect, who died a few years before the palace was completed.
But he remains focused on the immediate challenges.
Because the palace is in the center of the city, space to work is limited, meaning only one of the four facades can be restored at a time. Each lasts about two years, a timeframe that can outlast budgets and political will.
Each step requires discussions and compromises with the judges and administrators of various courts, including Belgium’s Supreme Court and the country’s highest criminal court – as well as French- and Flemish-speaking lawyers, who sometimes don’t even want to share the building’s library.
Mr Demesmaeker has one quality that experts say makes him perfect for this moment – his love of buildings.
“This memorial has suffered greatly from a lack of love,” Mr Buyle said.
Mr. Demesmaeker especially loves the multi-layered parallel universes of the palace. The public sees the courtrooms and other public spaces, such as the Hall of Lost Steps, the main public hall, lavishly decorated with delicate tapestries, porcelain vases, and ivory cabinets. But just a few yards above is another hall once used to train police officers, now empty save for a few faded martial arts posters and a row of cracked showers.
Mr. Demesmaeker saved many items that workers had thrown on the rubbish heap. A graffiti marked rock. pieces of wood. A plaque reading ‘No Lawyers Allowed’. He keeps them in collections of other interesting debris that he keeps at home or in his office.
His sons have begged him to stop collecting, but a recent visit to the palace made it clear he couldn’t help himself. He eyed a lonely old tire among the rubble.
“I was thinking about it for my collection,” he said.
The clock is ticking, but the list of things to do is getting longer and longer. An ecosystem of butterfly bushes and elderberries has taken root within the stone walls and needs to be removed. Graffiti need to be soaped up. Another ceiling collapsed recently.
Can Mr. Demesmaeker meet his 2030 deadline? He leaned forward and spoke into the recorder, “I just hope to finish before I retire.”
