Parc de la Boverie

The Boverie Park is a city park of Liège located between the Meuse and the derivation in the Outremeuse administrative district. It is connected to the Mativa wharf by the Mativa gateway, spanning the derivation, and to the quai de Rome by La Belle Liège beyond the Meuse bridge.

The Park is house the Museum of Modern Art and Contemporary Art (MAMAC) from 1980 to 2013 and the prints and drawings department of the city of Liège, Since May 2016 the Museum La Boverie, several nautical clubs, as well as the liege Palace of congresses (Palais des congrès de Liège) and a hotel formerly operated by the Holiday Inn chain.

Etymology

The word is latin and roman Bovaria, Bouverie, or Boverie simply means the dwelling of the oxen and by extension farm.

History

This place is appreciated since the fourteenth century for its Green character.

nineteenth century

The Boverie is located in the southern tip of Outremeuse Island, created in the middle of the nineteenth century by important corrections in the course of the Meuse and the digging of the Floodway. To create the new Park, the city of Liège organizes a contest in 1857. Of the 12 projects, three are retained: Édouard Keilig, Jean Grinda and Julien Etienne Remont. It is the latter who will obtain the favors of the jury. However, the jury, recognizing certain qualities of the other two projects, offers to acquire the plans to make a synthesis of the three.

In 1863, the city of Liège concedes the northern part to the Royal Society of horticulture and acclimatization, which built a garden of acclimatization, with a Zoological Park and attractions, whose access is at the height of the bridge of trade (today Albert 1^st bridge). The southern part is open: it builds a velodrome (at the location of the current rose garden). The Park was amended in 1874 by Hubert-Guillaume Blonden (Engineer-Director of public works of the city of Liège between 1857 and 1881) which replaces the small buildings (buoys, restaurants, animal cages) by turfed areas planted with trees.

Twentieth century

The Park hosted two international exhibitions:

• The universal exhibition of 1905 for the 75 years of Belgium. The Palace of fine arts is the only remaining building of 1905 exhibition: until in 2011 it housed the Museum of Modern Art and art contemporary (MAMAC) and the prints and drawings cabinet.

• The international exhibition of 1930 for the centenary of Belgium (specialized in science and industry).

Twenty-first century

The year 2016 marks a new beginning for the park with the renovation-expansion of the Palace of fine arts, which hosts the Museum of the Boverie and the construction of the beautiful Liege bridge that connects the Park to the Guillemins district.

The bitten Fauna

Particularly appreciated in the Salons of Paris and Brussels, the work of Jef  Lambeaux realized 1903 causes indignant reactions during its presentation at the Universal Exhibition of 1905. The public Liege is offended by this scene of struggle between the naked bodies entwined a Fauna and a woman with full forms.

The exhibition committee votes to send the work back to the artist. Finally, to repair the affront to this renowned sculptor, the city bought the bronze that will be placed in the rose garden of the Park after the second world war.

Cybernetic tower

Inaugurated on the 10^th of June 1961, the monumental Tower of Nicolas Schöffer is a very complex sculpture that is part of the Cybernetics light Tower project. Originally, it reated to its environment through an electronic brain located in the Palais des Congrès. For this purpose, the work is notably equipped with microphones, light sensors, a hygrometer and an anemometer. After analysis of the data, his artificial intelligence translated them by the movement of the polished plates, by natural and artificial light effects and by the production of sound sequences composed by Henri Pousseur. She even had the opportunity to make his own. Lack of proper maintenance, the tower was quickly disabled. However, this testimony from a time when faith in scientific progress was unwavering continues to fascinate. In 1997, the tower and its material components are classified in the real estate heritage of the Walloon Region before being classified in 2009 as exceptional heritage. In May 2015, the tower was dismantled for a complete renovation that would eventually make it operational, which it has not been since the 1970s, and modernize its obsolete electrical system.