Currently, Ugly Belgian Houses has a whopping 161k followers on Instagram, as well as an additional 120k+ fans on Facebook. And these folks can’t wait for the latest architectural disasters to challenge their understanding of good and bad taste.
Hannes, the founder of the project, has published a book about Ugly Belgian Houses, does vlogging on the side on YouTube, and even has his own creative digital studio, Hurae.
Earlier, the founder of the project spoke to Bored Panda about the Instagram page, beauty, and how some homeowners can get very angry when their properties get featured.
“I have been visiting a lot of the houses and had some really nice conversations,” Hannes told Bored Panda earlier.
“Meanwhile I am working on a second edition of the book, so I have to call all the owners again. I’ve just had a call with two people who hate me and don’t want their house in my book. I can understand that,” he opened up to us.
According to the Belgian, the success of his project is due to “the fact that we all have a certain opinion on what makes a house beautiful. Or ugly. And the fact that these opinions are only opinions.”
Meanwhile, he pointed out that a lot of Belgians also agree that they have a lot of ugly houses in the country. It’s not a unique perspective to have there. However, Hannes firmly believes that it is better to have an ugly house than a boring one.
“In Belgium, you have a lot of suburbs and housing projects that all look the same and are in fact very boring. Something you see in Holland as well. I prefer ugly than these boring creatures,” he suggested that calling a house ‘ugly’ is almost a subtle compliment.
In his opinion, a typical ugly house in Belgium has “its own quirky uniqueness” such as having “a special roof, a special stone, a special decoration.” He added: “We want to express ourselves via our house.”
Hannes joked that his beloved project has turned into a kind of a cult. “We all love to hate ugly Belgian houses,” he told us. However, Belgium is far from the only place that has errrr unique architecture. “Poland has terrible architecture, as a lot of people have let me see,” he shared his insights.
