Brief report of the first Salon Nieuw-Zuid

1. Introduction – The Poem and the Sea  

At our first Salon Nieuw-Zuid, we began with poetry.  

I read my own translation of Wallace Stevens' poem The Idea of Order at Key West.  

It is a poem about a woman who walks along the sea, singing. The sea itself has no voice, but through her singing, that sea acquires a human sound, an order, a form.  

I had transposed the work to our own Nieuw-Zuid – the idea of order in our neighborhood, in our community.  

We read together, listened, and let the sounds settle.  

It was the starting point for a series of questions I had prepared in advance to guide the conversation.  

Those questions formed the structure of the evening, but the conversation itself flowed freely: personal, philosophical, sometimes playful, sometimes profound.  

It worked wonderfully well.  

2. Imagination Gives Meaning to Chaos  

The first question we discussed was:  

Does imagination give meaning to chaos? Is that liberating, or sometimes also limiting?  

It emerged how imagination is not only a form of creation, but also of freedom.  

I gave the example of my uncle who lives along the Antwerp ring road.  

I once asked him: "Doesn't that noise bother you?"  

And he replied: "No, because if you imagine it's the sea, it sounds like music to your ears."  

That image touched many.  

We realized that we can hear noise as music, depending on how we listen.  

When we travel, for example to Spain by the sea, we actually seek out that sound – the eternal rushing of the waves.  

The same sound we find disturbing at home becomes comforting then.  

That brought us to the thought that imagination recreates the world, that it gives meaning where there was chaos.  

We philosophized further about how this gift can also limit us – when we give something a fixed form, we sometimes constrain other possibilities.  

Giving meaning is a creative act, but also a choice that excludes other choices.  

3. Art and Reality  

The second question was:  

A painting that captures light differently makes the world itself lighter.  

I told about an experience at a colleague's home, who showed me an artwork that at first looked like a jumble of copper wire on the wall.  

He asked: "What do you see in it?"  

I said: "Perhaps the finishing of an armature."  

He smiled, turned on the light, and suddenly the words Ars Aequi appeared on the wall – the art of equity.  

That moment was magical. It taught me that light reveals meaning.  

Without light, no insight. Art doesn't change what we see, but how we look.  

From this arose a fascinating conversation about the human tendency to seek structure.  

Is that a longing for meaning, or for anchor in changeability?  

The group remained philosophical and open, with art as the anchor point.  

4. The Voice of Nieuw-Zuid  

The third question was:  

Is architecture a form of grammar?  

We wondered: if a neighborhood speaks a language, is architecture its grammar?  

I told how I had gotten the impression that the structure of buildings might also influence the way people communicate.  

I gave examples from Palazzo Verdi, where I live.  

The building is L-shaped, allowing residents to see each other from their loggias – sometimes at an angle, sometimes directly, but always somewhat connected.  

Many people live there, and almost everyone knows each other more or less.  

Those sight lines create a feeling of community, of lateral proximity.  

Opposite stands another building, entirely vertical, where noticeably more conflicts occur.  

We wondered if that has to do with the architecture itself. We didn't reach a conclusion, because in another vertical building great harmony prevails. It emerged that communal spaces can play a role. The salon, incidentally, took place in the beautiful communal space of Schelde 21, and that will be the case next time as well.  

Another group lives around a patio, and there reigns yet another kind of atmosphere – calm, but less connection.  

Thus grew the insight that architecture forms a grammar of living together.  

It determines how the sentences of our daily life sound: whether they connect, clash, or resonate.  

5. The Community as Clan  

At that moment the conversation naturally shifted to the theme of community.  

The word clan had fallen, and that proved unexpectedly fruitful.  

It was mentioned that clan often sounds negative in our time, but that originally it was a positive word – think of the Scottish clans: families of loyalty, warmth, and mutual care.  

Thus the conversation turned to connection in Nieuw-Zuid.  

We spoke about the WhatsApp groups that exist in the neighborhood; that there are different small groups, while we nevertheless have one common denominator: the love of Nieuw-Zuid.  

Everyone likes living here. That alone already creates a form of clan – a positive, open community.  

6. Silence as Ordering  

The fourth question was:  

Silence is the white of the page on which meaning can appear.  

We spoke about what silence does to us.  

Some said they need to think for a moment before speaking – that silence gives space to let words ripen.  

Others noted that silence can sometimes feel uncomfortable, but that precisely then something new can emerge. Silence and rest are closely connected.  

We came to the insight that in our group we leave space for everyone's rhythm.  

That silence is also a form of listening.  

We discussed how silence has different meanings in different contexts.  

Sometimes silence is protective, sometimes opening, sometimes waiting.  

In art, silence often has a sacred value, a moment of reflection.  

In other contexts, silence can be precisely waiting or reserved.  

We discussed how the same silence can sound so different, depending on where you stand and what you seek.  

And in living together – there, silence sometimes has the last word, as a peaceful acceptance.  

7. Language in Poetry and in Precision  

The fifth question was:  

Poetry invites multiple interpretations; other forms of language seek clarity.  

We wondered what the different functions of language are.  

Poetry opens possibilities and invites personal resonance.  

Other forms of language – such as instructions, agreements, or descriptions – seek precisely precision and unambiguity.  

The general impression was that both have their value: poetry may float, practical language must be clear.  

Yet there is kinship: both seek structure and meaning.  

Poetry opens possibilities; clear language offers anchor.  

And somewhere between the two moves human conversation – sometimes floating, sometimes precise, always seeking.  

8. Makers of the World  

From Stevens' verse – "She was the single artificer of the world in which she sang" – we posed the question:  

Are we co-makers of the world in which we live, or only listeners?  

From this arose a dialogue about language and dialects, but also the languages of expats and newcomers in Nieuw-Zuid.  

We acknowledged that this is a neighborhood full of voices, accents, and rhythms.  

The multiplicity makes it sometimes complex, but also rich.  

We saw ourselves as co-makers of a living text: the neighborhood as a poem in becoming, in which everyone contributes a stanza.  

9. Architecture, Space, and Harmony  

We returned to the architecture of Nieuw-Zuid.  

We spoke about how the buildings enable communication with the air, the light, and nature.  

With its 65% green space, Nieuw-Zuid is a neighborhood of open breath.  

The terraces, loggias, and roof terraces invite connection with the outside.  

Yet it was striking that many roof terraces remain unused.  

We wondered why: perhaps time, perhaps habit, perhaps shyness.  

Practical themes also came up – here and there nuisance, a homeless person, a dark corner where something isn't right, and the problem of light pollution: sometimes too bright, sometimes too dim.  

Yet the tone was positive.  

We felt pride and satisfaction: we gladly live in Nieuw-Zuid.  

Living together isn't always easy – but that makes it human.  

A new neighborhood is a new world, and we are still learning to speak in its grammar.  

10. Closing Reflection  

We closed with Stevens' words:  

"In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds."  

The line lingered like an echo.  

It describes how clarity arises precisely in the vague, how sharpness shows itself in silence.  

We felt it that way too: that the salon wasn't about decisions, but about resonance.  

No one had felt unsafe; there was warmth, curiosity, and shared joy.  

We left the space with the realization that meaning is not silence, but the ability to let difference sound without it leading to rupture.  

That was the spirit of the evening –  

The echo of Stevens' sea in the voices and silences of Nieuw-Zuid.