Flanders today SEPTEMBER 18, 20 1 3
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Ready to renovate
Field frenzy
The Africa Museum is finally embarking on its massive renovation and extension project 5
Two young farmers emerge victorious from the Belgian ploughing championships
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Flanders wins in China Numerous agreements were made and contracts closed during an economic visit last week 7
The stage is set
The iconic but abandoned American Theatre could become a cultural hotspot Tom Peeters
During the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels, the biggest overseas stars were booked to play in the state-of-the-art theatre that was part of the American Pavilion (pictured above). After it was converted into a television studio by the Flemish public broadcaster, the impressive building lost its public function. Now, under the impetus of Brussels’ Ancienne Belgique concert hall, the American Theatre could be restored to its former glory.
V
anuit het Amerikaans Theater, or From the American Theatre: These four words have a prominent place in Flanders’ collective memory. Almost all major
television shows broadcast in Flanders between 1960 and 2012 were recorded here. And popular hosts such as Tony Corsari, Jan Theys, Luc Appermont and Bart Peeters always used to refer to the building in which they presented their popular programmes such as 100,000 of Niets, De Wies Andersen Show and De Droomfabriek. It was here that children’s friends Nonkel Bob and Tante Terry once interviewed this new hip band from the UK, The Rolling Stones, for their teenage show Tienerklanken; the Verreth brothers gave their legendary one and only performance as television hosts in Pak De Poen, de show van 1 miljoen; and controversial selections for the Eurovision Song Contest were made in Canzonissima and Eurosong.
“This is why the theatre still has a wide public appeal in Flanders, but is almost unknown in Brussels and Wallonia,” explains Marc Vrebos, technical director of concert hall Ancienne Belgique (AB), who’s leading a tour through the marvellous building in the shadow of the Atomium. Since the VRT had to leave the building last year, it has sat empty. But AB wants to turn it into a cultural beacon in one of Brussels’ top tourist areas. The theatre was designed by the American architect Edward Durell Stone, who in the 1930s built the Radio City Music Hall and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Wandering around the abandoned corridors and rooms of the circular American Theatre (one of its nicknames was hula hoop), it’s ``continued on page 3