Tournay-Solvay Park

The Tournay-Solvay Park is a park located in the commune of Watermael-Boitsfort in Brussels, Belgium. It lies between the Hulpe roadway and the Brussels-Namur railway. This landscaped park is the result of successive lay-outs made by the Solvay family in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

History

In 1878, Alfred Solvay, brother and partner of the industrialist Ernest Solvay, built a country house on the site. The architects Constant Bosmans and Henri Vandeveld erected a Flemish neo-Renaissance style building, alternating white stone and red brick.

Around 1905, the architect Jules Brunfaut added a double tower, a large cradle-arc on the ground floor and a closed loggia on the first floor, giving it the appearance of a castle. The park meanwhile was laid-out in 1911 by the gardens architect, Jules Buyssens, whu also made the classic rose garden in 1924.

After the death of Theresa Tournay-Solvay, Alfred Solvay’s daughter, the property was sold by her heirs to a property company which wanted to build offices. The project being unsuccessful, the property remained abandoned until it was purchased by the Brussels Region in 1980. It was open to the public the following year. In 1982, the castle was destroyed by arson, reducing it to ruins, by lack of reaction from the authorities.

The rose garden and the garden-orchard were restored by landscape architect Jacques Boulanger-French in 1985.

The park was integrated into the Green Walk

The Bruxellisation of Castle Tournay-Solvay

At the time of the fire (1982) the building was still recoverable through significant expenses that alas will be granted, neither by the public nor by private persons.

One will adapt accordingly, at the municipality of Watermael-Boitsfort, to  a slow but steady decay of the place, culminating in 2012 with the encirclement, still wider, of the Castle by Nadar barriers, in order to secure the scene of possible falling rocks, pieces, and so on....

Works of conservation and stabilization were finally initiated by the regional land administration by the summer of 2014, under the leadership of the Minister-President of the Brussels Region, Rudi Vervoort. A draft copyright mission to the complete restoration of the castle was also entrusted to architect Francis Metzger, known for the restoration of another jewel of the Flemish Renaissance Revival architecture in Watermael-Boitsfort, the Castle Charle Albert.

Buildings and monuments

• To the right of the main entrance, the old stables of the castle built by Georges Collin at the same time as the caretaker’s lodge in 1920, were restored in 1992 and now house the Regional Centre for Initiation to ecology, animated by the Tournesol-Zonnebloem association.
• Castle ruins.
• The White Villa, dating from the early twentieth century, built in art nouveau style and transformed by the architect Alban Chambon. It was intended to house the friends of the Tournay-Solvay family. Restored, it is now occupied by the European Foundation for sculpture.
• The big red triangle is a work of the Italian sculptor Mauro Staccioli conducted in 1996, now dismantled.
• A replica of the colossal Olmec head nr.8 from the Mexican archaeological site of San Lorenzo.
• Kelda, eternal spring from Thérése Chotteau (1998, entrance of the vegetable garden) celebrates the memory of a girl, who died in the prime of life, Kelda Spangenberg (1974-1996), to whom her bereaved parents wanted to show their attachment. On a base which reproduces her writing - a short text that speaks of nature and of the things she loved - stands a portrait, which is also a metaphor for eternal childhood: In a patina given bronze in shades of green under the foliage it appears to us as a modern elf, slender figure touching an oak leaf as big as she is, with her finger.