A CARPET MADE OF OVER 600,000 FLOWERS

Summertime is for Fun, Family and Flowers! That is why every two years in mid August a great floral spectacle is created at the Grand-Place in Brussels. This is the Flower Carpet of Brussels, a tradition that has been around since 1971.

The carpet is created by a hundred volunteers who assemble it in just 4 hours. Visitors to the great Grand-Place get a chance to enjoy the fragrant scent of the begonias and admire its details. This extraordinary spectacle is made complete by a visit to the balcony of the Town Hall, which offers a wide-angle view of the work. A musical theme is especially composed for each edition. A concert is given on the Grand-Place every evening and accompanies a magnificent sound-and-light show.

Every two years, the non-profit association Tapis de Fleurs brings together a committee of professionals (illustrators, graphic designers, landscape architects) who come up with scale projects, with each edition illustrating a different theme (the commemoration of major events, a country, a continent, the coat of arms of a city, etc.). Once the theme has taken shape in the form of a model and symbols, the number of flowers is calculated and the combinations of colours are established. The hundreds of thousands of cut flowers necessary for the composition can then be reserved, very long in advance. Several days before the inauguration, a full-size drawing is executed on sheets of micro-perforated plastic that are laid down atop the cobblestones of the Grand-Place.

The day before the opening, the spaces between the floral motifs are filled in using rolls of sod. The flowers are so closely-packed, 300 per square metre, i.e. around 600,000 flowers in all!

Additional info courtesy: FLOWERCARPET.BE
VIDEO Courtest: DW English