AREAS OF ANTWERP

De Gerlachekaai or De Gerlache Quay in Antwerp has recently been redeveloped. It will be used by Antwerp Pride for its 2022 edition in August as “the large festival site”.

The De Gerlachekaai is a part of the Scheldt Quays on the right bank of the river. Located in the Zuid (South) neighbourhood between the Visserskaai (Fishermen Quay) and the Namenstraat (Namur Street). The construction of these quays dates back to the large-scale infrastructure project that developed a new harbor strip between 1877 and 1885 by straightening the Scheldt.

Recent changes

But recent changes have changed the Scheldt Quays dramatically. These changes are an ongoing process.

At the De Gerlachekaai, there is now a large cobbled area. A few pieces of furniture, an installation for riverside ash scatterings (funerals) and a bell. There’s also a banking, which become steeper going southwards.

Antwerp Pride surprised with the use of Operaplein or Opera Square for the 2021 COVID-19 safe edition, so it will be interesting how the De Gerlachekaai will be used. Will the banking be integrated.

Adjacent to the ‘square’, there’s a playground. This can easily be turned into an adult version. Ask Jeroen from Darklands for advice. Just saying.

Father and son

De Gerlache is a household name in Belgium.

Baron Adrien Victor Joseph de Gerlache de Gomery FRSGS (2 August 1866 – 4 December 1934) was a Belgian officer in the Belgian Royal Navy who led the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897–1899.

In 1896, de Gerlache purchased the Norwegian-built whaling ship Patria, which he extensively refitted and renamed Belgica. With a multinational crew including Roald Amundsen, Frederick Cook, Antoni Bolesław Dobrowolski, Henryk Arctowski and Emil Racoviță, he set sail from Antwerp on 16 August 1897.

Baron Gaston de Gerlache de Gomery (Brussels, 17 November 1919 – Oudenaarde, 13 July 2006) was a son o Adrien. Hfollowed in the tracks of his father by leading the second Belgian expedition to Antarctica in 1957–1958, 60 years after his father led the 1897–1899 expedition.

Gaston de Gerlache and his crew established the King Baudouin Base in 1958 in the context of the International Geophysical Year.