New house style launched
Feel the heartbeat of historyA contemporary look
The launch of this website kicks off our new house style. Not only were the castle rooms and hallways thoroughly redecorated, our house style was also given a new look. The tailor commissioned was Jim Van Raemdonck from design firm Soon. After an intense process, we are very proud and happy to share the result with you. A new colour palette, a restyling of the logo, a powerful baseline ... these are just a few of the many facets of our new visual identity.
See the two intertwined hearts in the revamped castle logo? They symbolise the past and the present feeding, embracing and transforming one another without end. It also reveals the architecture of the castle towers. Fans of the biscione – the familiar snake of the Arconati Visconti's family crest – need not grieve. Rather than throwing the serpent out with the bathwater, we embraced it as a nice contemporary extension to the basic logo. Not only because we find it a powerful symbol, but also because the castle owes an enormous amount to this Milanese family. As it happens, it was Marquise Arconati Visconti, the last owner, who donated the castle to the Belgian state. She is the reason we can all enjoy the castle today as a place of connection and wonder. Of course, we do like to keep highlighting that.
Feel the heartbeat of history
One powerful sentence summarising Gaasbeek Castle and its operation – this was no easy task. In the many brainstorms and focus groups with different target groups, our dual identity emerged very clearly: on the one hand, a unique historic house with a rich history; on the other, a lively meeting place, a heritage laboratory developing initiatives that playfully connect past and present.
The perfect words came from an unexpected source and were found in a review by Karl Ove Knausgård, who praises the British writer and historian Orlando Figes with the following words: "An outstanding historian and writer, he brings distant history so close that you could feel its heartbeat." In this, we recognised our reason for existence, our motivation, our mission.
Now that our logo and baseline have also been refocused, we are more ready than ever to welcome you with open arms and make your hearts beat that touch faster.
House style by Soon