Monument for Coronovirus victims in Brussels

One in memory of the coronavirus victims was revealed on Wednesday 13 March 2024 – four years from the day of the first lockdown in Belgium. The monument – entitled “Onument” – is located in the heart of Osseghem Park, near Atomium and is a place of memory for the approximately 32,000 people who died from him in Belgium, 3,500 of them in the Brussels area. Thirteen concrete benches, 80 cm apart from each other, arranged in a circle. Onument in Brussels is one of six monuments throughout the country. It was designed by landscape architect Bas Smets, as were those in Ghent, Luvene, Aarschot, Kortrijk and Lommel. Although each monument is different, all are based on the same principle: a perfect circle, consisting of curved elements of the same dimensions, interrupted by a natural force such as a water current or a tree. This physical invisible force seems to have broken the cycle, just like Covid-19 “severed the cycle of our lives”. “The idea was to create a monument based on a principle that could be applied to many points, such as coronavirus spreading everywhere,” his designer explained. “We imagined a perfect cycle interrupted by a physical, invisible force, which breaks the 13 elements symbolizing March 13, the date of the first lockdown four years ago”. The selection of a park, a space that became an outlet to the different lockdown phases imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, can only be accidentally not be considered. “It’s the only place where we can see each other. We have the opportunity to meet here with our grief, our loneliness, in memory of the victims.” Osseghem Park was selected for its calmness. A quiet space in the green where people can be “remedied with the help of nature”. A meeting around a dramatic event, a place of mourning, and a place of memory for loved ones who were lost…