The host city for this year’s Flanders Open Monument Day has been announced as Leuven. Taking place on the second Sunday of September, Open Monument Day entails hundreds of historic and cultural sites across Flanders throwing their doors and gates open for free to the public.
Fantastic immovable heritage
On 8 September 2024, Leuven will take up the mantle of host for the event’s 36th edition, thanks to its “fantastic heritage,” according to Griet Langbeen, coordinator of Open Monument Day at Herita, the company behind the event.
Leuven also continues to draw attention to immovable heritage. That is why we chose the student city as the host city.
Griet Langbeen, coordinator of Open Monument Day at Herita
The announcement came at Leuven Town Hall during an inspiration festival for the event that Herita arranged in the city. More than 120 participants and stakeholders from local authorities to non-profits and historians came together on 22 Feburary to share ideas for an Open Monument Day that would look beyond the iconic Flanders offering of hiking and cycling.
En Route
The chosen theme will be “En Route” and Leuven’s angle of approach will involve a closer look at the Flanders city and its relationship with the development of the train, the footsteps of the ancient Romans in the region, and attitudes towards our final journey with the evolution of Flemish funerary heritage. The city’s Park Abbey and its cemetery will no doubt feature there – a haven of peace sometimes compared to Paris’s Pere Lachaise.
Carl Devlies, Leuven’s alderman for immovable heritage, has pointed out the many other ways the “En Route” theme is reflected in the modern city and its eye on the past. “We are also ‘En route’ with this town hall,” he said, adding that “it will be restored and repurposed in the coming years. The many students in the city are also ‘En route’ with us. We will also put the spotlight on St. James’ Church, which has been closed for a long time but will be opened again in the future through a repurposing process. So we are completely ‘En route!’ in Leuven.”
The city is also “en route” to next year’s 600th anniversary of world-renowned KU Leuven (Leuven’s Catholic University). A knowledge-leader, the institution has been bringing scholars, philosophers and scientists and therefore world-change to the heart of the city for centuries.
The full programme for Open Monument Day will be revealed in August 2024.