The discreet entrance to the Aegidium, at 18 Parvis Saint Gilles, Brussels, conceals the magnificent remains of an auditorium spread over two levels within a complex of some 5,000 square metres. You can only guess at its existence when you cross the threshold to discover, at the end of a corridor, an imposing staircase that leads to two rooms facing each other: on one side, a ballroom in the Louis XV style and, on the other, the Moorish, Art Nouveau version of a 600-seat festival hall. The latter is truly stunning, a vestige alone of its kind in the Belgian capital – and perhaps in Europe. It features a balcony supported by colonnettes under trefoil arches entirely covered in decorative motifs, with a plethora of shells, palmettes and geometric friezes running around the edges.
This intriguing jewel, commissioned in the early 1900s by Léon Bejay-Dejonghe, a wealthy bourgeois from the city (like his architect Guillaume Segers, he left little historical trace), was a favourite meeting spot for the wild things of the Roaring Twenties, and a place for all kinds of exuberance. Successively transformed into a theatre, a cinema and then a parish church, it closed its doors in the 1980s. Since then, this abandoned monument to a forgotten past has inevitably fallen into disrepair. Since the millennium, attempts have been made to give it the kiss of life. It was listed in 2006, and restoration work seems to be on the right track, despite a few false starts.
The history of the Aegidium is steeped in romance. Le Diamant Palace, as it was known when it was launched, was a shining beacon of design, both literally and figuratively: this palace of light twinkled with more than 5,000 bulbs, some of which were hidden in the eight-pointed stars on the coffered ceiling of the Moorish room, just as they sparkled in the feathers of the peacocks adorning the stairwell.
The entire palace hummed, an electric fairy tale reflected endlessly in the mirrors artfully placed in each of the rooms and echoed in the polychrome motifs enhancing the balcony. It was absolutely essential to surprise visitors, to draw them into the vertigo of reflections. This was an initiation that began in the large entrance hall, which was surmounted by a vault of bevelled mirrors framed by moulded wood, at the crossroads of which were bulbs that bounced about in the many mirrors below. The novelty of this supernatural flickering fascinated the press, and people rushed to enjoy the phenomenon. Unfortunately, the craze was short-lived.
In 1929, the Church bought the palace, christened it Aegidium in honour of St Gilles, according to the Latin transcription of the word, and hastily covered the slightly sulphurous decorations of this dancing extravaganza in white. Thanks to the owner’s commitment to see to its upkeep, happily the exceptional architecture will be preserved – unlike other jewels of Belgian Art Nouveau, which, like Victor Horta’s glass-and-steel Maison du Peuple, have fallen prey to bulldozers.
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