Brussels Flower Carpet 2016: A very different look

Even unfinished, it was clear on Friday morning that the latest begonia flower carpet has a very different look.

Of course each carpet has a different design depending on its theme. Two years ago it was a celebration of the Turkish community in Belgium so it drew from Turkish carpet design tradition. Four years ago it was an African design. But they had in common a dense, deeply coloured design.

This year it's a celebration of 150 years of diplomatic recognition between Belgium and Japan and for the first time Mark Schautteet, the carpet architect, worked with an artist from the honoured country. Fujie Suzuki, a Japanese graphic artist, came up with a design that strikes by its openness, large areas in pale colours and white and contrasting with large graphic representations of Japanese iconic images in Japanese red.

Schautteet has been doing flower carpets since 1971. "I'm a graphic artist," he says. "Mr Stautemas, who was the originator of the flower carpet, hired me to draft a full-scale model of the carpet design. That's how I started.

"Now I also do the designing. I design the carpet by pencil and then transfer it onto the full scale plastic sheets with paint, and these sheets are what you see here on the ground which the assemblers use to lay out the flowers."

It takes months to make the final plastic model and he makes about five carpets a year. "After this one is finished I have Lochristi, Leuven and Sint-Truiden to do this fall," he says. "We just came back from Tokyo where we did three carpets, but that was with roses so it was quite a different process."

Design difficulties

It is the first time that Suzuki has worked on a project of this size. She was guided by the Japanese concept of kacho fugetsu in her design. "Kacho fugetsu stands for flower, bird, wind and moon, by all means it represents the beauties of nature that we love and respect so I represented kacho fugetsu in my design - in other words the beauty and love of nature and scenery.

"My work is normally for such objects as posters so this is the first time I have done anything in such a huge size."

Were there any difficulties? "Yes, first of all, in terms of the colour it was very limited and the kinds of flowers were also limited, these limitations made it difficult for me to design something that represented my concept. Also, in Japan we have no carpet designing tradition.

"Everybody knows that the Grand-Place is one of the most beautiful market squares in the world and also making use of the begonias which have been grown with the care and love by Belgian people - combining the two elements to express the beauties that we find in Japan was very challenging."

The opening ceremony, music and light show and fireworks is at 22.00 on Friday 12 August.

13-15 August: Viewing from the balcony of City Hall 10.00-22.00 (€5). Ground level viewing open throughout the four-day period, free.