Brussels (The Brussels Morning Newspaper): The Brussels Flower Carpet 2024 features a modern design by street artist Océane Cornille combining Art Nouveau and street art styles. Over 120 volunteers create the colorful display using nearly 1 million dahlias.
For 2024 year’s Flower Carpet in Brussels the city council has chosen Océane Cornille a street artist from Liège to make the design. Her artwork called “Rhizome,” gives a modern touch to the city’s Art Nouveau style. Cornille’s design aims to combine the look of modern street art with the classic beauty of Art Nouveau celebrating Brussels’ rich artistic history. The carpet will be decorated with dahlias which are the flowers chosen for this year. This yearly event turns the Grand Place into a colorful display of flower art featuring detailed patterns and designs made from thousands of flowers. Cornille’s work aims to mix traditional art styles with a new, modern view showing how historical and contemporary art can work together.
What makes the 2024 Brussels Flower Carpet a unique and special event?
It has been said that every two years Brussels’ Grand Place is turned into a Flower Carpet where the historic square is filled with beautiful flower designs. Making this amazing display requires careful planning and several steps. About 120 volunteers help out working together to create the design. In an impressive display of teamwork and quickness these volunteers put in almost 1 million flowers in less than four hours. This hard work creates a colorful and detailed flower carpet that changes the Grand Place into a stunning sight, showing the art and commitment behind this special event.
Koen Vondenbusch, the designer of the Flower Carpet shared that they aimed for a unique design by collaborating with a street artist. He noted that the design includes elements of Art Nouveau and reflects the neighborhoods of Brussels coming together. They started working early in the morning but the heat is slowing them down. They’re using dahlias instead of begonias since dahlias tolerate the heat better. Koen mentioned that many people are watching the creation process and the best view is from the city hall. He emphasized the historical significance of the Grand Place a UNESCO World Heritage Site and how special it is to have such a large flower carpet there.
Steve Berckx, a volunteer from Leuven is joining for the first time. He says it feels like “painting by numbers” because you know where to put the flowers. He enjoys the work and likes talking to the people around him. Knowing the designer makes him feel good and he can’t wait to see the finished carpet from the balcony of the city hall. Guy Rombouts,who has done the Loenhout flower parade before brought some extra dahlias to help out. He’s used to the heat from his construction job so he’s handling it well. Along with the flower carpet there’s also a flower trail in the streets near the Grand Place in Brussels.
