Can Kortrijk celebrate its heritage without mourning what the city has lost?

Kortrijk historian and philologist Frans Debrabandere has published a pointed elegy for his home city days before it hosts Flanders’ Open Monumentendag on 13 September 2026, contrasting the celebration of surviving monuments with decades of wartime destruction, demolition and commercial decline. The 93-year-old told Het Nieuwsblad that he is “not really angry” but saddened by what has disappeared and by Kortrijk’s diminished role as a regional centre.

The intervention matters locally because Kortrijk is about to become Flanders’ showcase for the care of built heritage. Herita, which organises Open Monumentendag, says the 38th edition will feature roughly 70 activities at more than 50 locations in and around the city. Under the theme “In good hands”, visitors will encounter the owners, craftspeople, inspectors and volunteers who keep historic places in use. The programme is free, although some tours require reservations.

Debrabandere’s account complicates that optimistic message without simply rejecting it. Drawing on nine decades of personal memory, he recalls buildings lost during the Second World War, including the sixteenth-century cloth hall on today’s Schouwburgplein, as well as later redevelopment that removed older façades. He also connects physical loss to a changing commercial centre, pointing to empty premises and the disappearance of specialist food shops from central streets. Het Nieuwsblad attributes that diagnosis to competition from shopping centres and online retail.

His criticism is tempered by approval for projects he believes improved Kortrijk: the restored beguinage, the reshaping of the Grote Markt, new development between the Broel Towers and Guldenbergplantsoen, and the lowered Leie quays. His argument is therefore less a demand to freeze the city than a plea to treat what remains as a finite civic inheritance. He regards guest-city status as an encouragement to do better, while urging Kortrijk to attract more shops and visitors.

The municipal perspective places greater emphasis on renewal alongside preservation. Kortrijk’s current policy programme calls heritage the city’s memory, promises to prioritise restoration of its most important monuments and proposes expanding the local inventory to include selected post-war reconstruction architecture. It also links those goals to new parks, public-space projects and a longer-term spatial plan. The city is working on the restoration of its UNESCO-listed belfry, while a VRT NWS report documented cooperation among the city, the Flemish Heritage Agency and private owner Brouwerij De Brabandere on the restoration of the approximately 400-year-old Gouden Cruys.

That balance remains contested. In 2025, the Council for Permit Disputes annulled the permit to demolish Kortrijk station because its heritage value had not been sufficiently considered, according to VRT NWS. Heritage associations argued for retaining the building, while alderman Wout Maddens stressed accessibility and warned that uncertainty could delay the NMBS-led station project. The dispute shows why Debrabandere’s elegy reaches beyond nostalgia: decisions about usefulness, mobility and conservation are still reshaping the city.

Kortrijk’s heritage also belongs to a wider European story. Its belfry forms part of UNESCO’s transnational group of 56 Belgian and French belfries, monuments that represent medieval municipal autonomy. Its beguinage is one of 13 Flemish beguinages on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Open Monumentendag’s Flemish theme complements the European Heritage Days emphasis on heritage at risk, connecting local maintenance to a continent-wide question: how should living cities adapt without erasing the evidence of how they became themselves?

On 13 September, visitors can inspect places including the Broel Towers, Baggaertshof, former flax sites, the State Archives and the Augustinian convent. Monumentenwacht West-Vlaanderen will demonstrate preventive inspection techniques at the convent. The immediate test is whether the programme produces more than a successful day of access—whether celebration, criticism and current planning can lead to sustained care after the doors close.