Belgium: the apartment where we lived has windows with glass inserted over a hundred years ago. But at the same time, the apartment is a "smart home"

Somehow I happened to live in Liege. Previously, it was the center of the coal, steel, arms industry. Today the industry is over, but the city has not become popular with tourists. An ordinary mid-Belgian non-pop city.

Belgium, despite its headquarters, is some kind of wrong Europe. This is an architectural shock. In the correct Europe, a modern building in the historical part of the city is thoughtfully integrated into the surroundings.

In Liege, apparently, they have not heard of such rules. The houses are glued together like vertical slices. And these slices are mixed somehow completely illogical. There is no unity of style, material, size, decor, color. This is probably what eclecticism looks like in its purest form.

Among the smoky walls of the 17th and 18th centuries, completely fresh households are squeezed in. Age houses and right there - recent extensions, add-ons, additions, inserts, inserts. Both old and new buildings are usually narrow - one door, one or two windows on the facade, but several floors. There is nowhere to build in breadth, in height - please, how much money is enough. The number of apartments in a building can be determined by the number of calls and mailboxes.

Among the centuries-old buildings, a large number of vacant premises are striking. It is expensive to maintain and renovate an apartment in an old building while preserving its appearance. Old people cannot afford it, young people do not want to, middle-aged citizens prefer to live in the suburbs. In addition, the law prohibits living in an apartment during renovation. That is why so many houses stand with dark, empty windows.

In old houses, instead of the usual double-glazed windows, there are wooden frames. The apartment we lived in had six French windows with glass inserted a century or more ago. It is thick and wavy. But at the same time, an apartment is a "smart home", be it wrong.

Heating in apartments is regulated by residents, and they do not strive for comfortable heat. But on the other hand, no one walks at home barefoot or in slippers, this is indecent. Just like it is indecent to close the curtains.

The 200-year-old houses did not have kitchens. Making modern renovations, everyone equips the apartment in their own way. Often these are studio apartments, and instead of a kitchen there can be a niche without a window, or it is combined with a bathroom.

Modern high-rise buildings are different. Unpretentious, blocky buildings are similar to our dull buildings. The difference is that these are not residential neighborhoods, but separate complexes on the riverbank.

More elite housing is lower, 3-5 floors, the facades attract with panoramic windows, loggias-terraces (on which clothes are not dried), tinted glass.

Another option is suburban villages, 20-25 minutes from the city center. Liege has 196 thousand people, and 600 thousand with the suburbs.

We visited such a village as a guest. Lack of fences, open areas, minimalism and functionality. Not only are there no beds and greenhouses, there are also no gnomes, lanterns, fountains on the site, there are no flowers on the windows and carved platbands. No landscape design, so beloved in Germany, Austria, Czech Republic. Plus, the gray color of the walls and roofs, which is now very trendy, the absence of people on the street, dogs in the yards.

In general, the impression is that the Belgians are inveterate individualists who do not tolerate clichés and easily rewrite standards. The urban planning policy is very lenient, so house projects are often limited only by the imagination and finances of the owners.

But oddly enough, such an absurd at first glance architecture is actually very attractive. There is color and atmosphere in her quirkiness. Despite the seeming awkwardness, disproportion, there was never a feeling of disharmony. Only a feeling of close friendship and mutual understanding in one large family of houses where different generations easily get along.