House of Eutopia

The sense and nonsense of a common history of Europe

25 Tem 2013
21 Eyl 2013

Belgian artist Filip Berte has been working on Eutopia since 2006. And now you can visit it in Utrecht, as part of the celebration of the 300 years Treaty of Utrecht. This art installation is based on an intuitive study of georgaphic, political, historic and cultural Europe. Berte wants to make people feel and see up close what is going on in Europe, instead of reading about it in the newspaper. Eutopia bridges the gap between past and future, between the unconscious past or collective memory and new visions of the future. Filip Berte places the current social and political context between these two poles.

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Model of the House of Eutopia by Filip Berte - Image found on the website of House of Eutopia

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The process of building the House is as important as the final result: the Eutopia project spans several years and systematically results in the creation of individual sections or rooms of the House which can travel all over Europe. Consequently, the House of Eutopia is mobile and the ‘pars pro toto’ principle applies to the rooms: each section reflects the whole, which is an architectural ‘Gesammtkunstwerk’. The House of Eutopia consists of five rooms or installations. The two opposite poles of the house are the cellar and the attic. The cellar contains Europe’s damaged or suppressed past; the attic houses the utopia and new concepts for the future. Between these two poles the current European social and political context is housed in three separate rooms, discussing themes from migration and minorities to the notion of European citizenship.