Can Fernand Huts turn 81 bells into a new landmark for Antwerp’s port?

Katoen Natie chief executive Fernand Huts has started work on an 81-bell concert carillon weighing about 60 tonnes for his group’s Singelberg site in Kallo, on the left bank of the Port of Antwerp-Bruges

The project is being developed by Katoen Natie, The Phoebus Foundation, waste-management company Indaver and publisher Hannibal Books. It will form part of a new 65-metre tower at Burcht Singelberg, the port complex where Katoen Natie and Indaver have operational headquarters. Het Nieuwsblad reports that Antwerp

Place

Antwerp

Port city and regional reference point for the project.

Why it matters

Port city and regional reference point for the project.

About

Antwerp is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest municipality in Belgium by area at 208.22 km2 (80.39 sq mi). With a population of 565,039, it is the most populous municipality in Belgium, and with a metropolitan population of over 1.2 million people, the country's second-largest metropolitan area after Brussels.

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The proposed instrument is unusually ambitious even by carillon standards. Its 81 bells will span six and a half octaves, compared with four octaves and 49 bells in each of the two carillons in Mechelen

Place

Mechelen

Belgian city used as a benchmark through its historic tower carillons.

Why it matters

Belgian city used as a benchmark through its historic tower carillons.

About

Mechelen is a city and municipality in the province of Antwerp in the Flemish Region of Belgium. The municipality comprises the city of Mechelen proper, some quarters at its outskirts, the hamlets of Nekkerspoel (adjacent) and Battel, as well as the villages of Walem, Heffen, Leest, Hombeek, and Muizen. The city is often referred to as the Dijlestad as the river Dyle (Dijle) flows through it.

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That comparison needs a qualification. ‘Largest’ can mean the greatest number of bells, the highest total bronze weight, the widest musical range or the heaviest bass bell. The Singelberg project is designed to lead on the number of playable bells and to offer an exceptionally broad range, but the record will only become concrete once the complete instrument has been cast, installed and commissioned. For now, one bell exists and the remainder form an announced construction programme.

For Katoen Natie, the carillon is not part of its core cargo-handling proposition. The Antwerp-based logistics company, whose Belgian operating company Katoen Natie NV is registered under enterprise number BE0404.778.426, makes its money from activities including storage, port cargo handling and transport. The bells instead extend Huts’ long-running use of art, architecture and heritage to shape the identity of company sites. Singelberg already contains contemporary art, while The Phoebus Foundation manages the collection assembled around Huts’ patronage.

The business rationale is therefore closer to place-making, corporate identity and cultural infrastructure than to an investment with an easily measurable return. A publicly accessible tower, concerts, international masterclasses and research facilities could bring visitors and specialist activity to an industrial area that most people otherwise experience from a road, warehouse or ship. Antwerp city carillonneur Koen Van Assche told Het Nieuwsblad that the remote location could also be an advantage: musicians would be able to rehearse at hours that would cause disturbance around an urban bell tower.

There are practical limits. Singelberg lies far from the dense city centre in Kallo, now part of the merged municipality of Beveren-Kruibeke-Zwijndrecht. Koen Cosaert, director of the Royal Carillon School in Mechelen, noted in Het Nieuwsblad that public transport is limited apart from the Waterbus. That makes the proposed visitor access meaningful, but it does not automatically turn the complex into a mass-tourism destination. Programming, opening hours and connections will determine whether it becomes a working cultural institution or primarily a prestigious landmark on a private corporate estate.

The project’s budget, financing structure and projected operating costs have not been published in the reviewed reporting. Nor has a public subsidy been identified. That distinction matters for households and businesses: on the available evidence, this is a privately led cultural investment rather than a new charge on Antwerp residents or port users. Its direct economic effect is likely to be concentrated among Royal Eijsbouts, architects, engineers, construction contractors, musicians and cultural partners. Any wider gains for hospitality or tourism will depend on actual visitor numbers after opening.

The broader significance lies in the meeting of an old civic instrument with the modern logistics landscape. Carillons developed in the Low Countries as public music heard from municipal and church towers. In 2014, UNESCO added Belgian carillon culture to its register of good safeguarding practices. Singelberg reverses the customary geography: instead of bells sounding above a historic market square, they will stand among terminals and industrial buildings in one of Europe’s largest port clusters.

Supporters see that contrast as productive. Van Assche, who also chairs the World Carillon Federation, argues that the expanded range will allow European performers to play contemporary compositions written for larger American instruments. The complex is intended to host composers, researchers and students from Belgium and abroad, giving the project a function beyond spectacle. Huts also plans for the Angelus to sound at noon, linking the site to the rural bell tradition he remembers from childhood.

Sceptical residents and heritage observers may reasonably ask whether superlatives and monumental architecture are substituting for a demonstrated public need. Huts’ earlier cultural plans for Antwerp’s Boerentoren prompted strong opposition from Flemish government architects, and the disputed glass addition was withdrawn. The Singelberg location is materially different because it is an industrial corporate estate rather than a protected city-centre monument, but the same question about private wealth shaping prominent shared landscapes remains relevant.

The next tests are straightforward: whether all 81 bells are funded and cast, whether the tower proceeds on schedule, how the instrument will be governed and programmed, and how easily the public can reach it. Until commissioning in 2028, the world-record description should remain conditional. What is already clear is that Huts is using a logistics headquarters to make a cultural statement: the Antwerp port is being presented not only as machinery for moving goods, but as a place capable of producing a distinctive public sound.