Do you live in a striking, strange or ugly house? Then you can submit your home for the third book of ‘Ugly Belgian Houses’, which again bundles the ugliest homes in the country. “Everything in our country is very close together. It is that cacophony that sometimes makes things ugly,” says driving force Hannes Coudenys.
“It’s better to be ugly than boring,” says Hannes Coudenys, the man who came up with ‘Ugly Belgian Houses’ about ten years ago. What followed was worldwide attention for our remarkable Belgian houses, two books and a column in ‘Everyone Famous’, in which he apologizes to the owners of the houses he publishes. In 2021 he released a sequel to the book called ‘More Ugly Belgian Houses’. Now it’s time for a third part.
Do you have an ugly house? Then you can forward it to [email protected] and who knows, your facade might soon shine in the new book.
“I have been working on it for ten years now and it has become something for which we are known in Belgium,” says Coudenys. “It’s nice that something like this has become part of our Belgian culture. ‘Ugly Belgian Houses’, but we are proud of it.” The project is also a phenomenon on social media, where the accompanying Instagram account already has more than 200,000 followers who enjoy the ugly houses.
“Total Eclipse of the House”
“I have an apartment in Bredene, and I would really like it to be in the upcoming book,” says Coudenys. “There is a new apartment block with a large black wall on the side. Next to it is a house that did not want to make way for that apartment block. I think that is very cool.”
“That house is not ugly, but rather the overall picture is ugly. I want to highlight that. It is remarkable that there is now a very small house there against a large black wall. I call that ‘A Total Eclipse of the House’,” he says. “When you drive around in Belgium, you notice that everything is very close together. It is that cacophony that makes things ugly.”
Approval
Yet it is not easy to convince people to include their house in the book. “I think that 20 percent of the people I knock on are not happy when I ask if they want to be in my book. For the first book I visited 500 people. In the end, only 50 people gave permission to be in the book,” says Coudenys. “I understand that, because the title doesn’t sound very positive.”
Although there are also many enthusiasts. For example, there are people who bought a house that once appeared on the Ugly Belgian Houses site. “They then say very proudly: we have bought an ‘Ugly Belgian House’.”
