For 30 years, the Brussels nightclub Fuse has stood as a temple to Europe’s legions of electro-techno fans, a venue where the likes of Daft Punk and Aphex Twin set the concrete-walled dance floor thumping.
However, those thumps are increasingly the source of tensions with neighbors who want more restful nights. It is a tussle — between youthful cultural exuberance and city-center gentrification, a clash of generations and lifestyles — seen in many of the world’s capitals. It is one that hangs heavy over Fuse as it celebrates its three decades of existence.
Throughout this year, the nightclub is emphasizing its cultural status by bringing out a memorial book and a vinyl compilation by top artists. It is also launching a global club tour of 10 cities that is to include Amsterdam, Berlin, Barcelona and London, all under the banner “30 years of making noise.”
Photo: AFP
The celebration is backed by big-name sponsors — international soft drink brands and Belgian beer brewers — and Brussels city politicians who hold Fuse up as a world-class “monument.”
Yet some residents in Fuse’s Marolles district — a formerly working-class neighborhood gone hipster — would be happier to see all that as a crescendo before a definitive fade to silence.
“It’s tougher and tougher for clubs to exist in city centers,” said DJ Pierre — real name Pierre Noisiez — who is one of a roster filling Fuse with sound since it started in 1994.
Photo: AFP
“If you get rid of them, you end up with a city center that is dead, which no one wants,” he said.
The club’s management has lashed out at noise complaints being made that threaten “the oldest techno club in Belgium.”
Fuse was forced to close for three weeks in January last year after complaints from one neighbor prompted authorities to swoop in with noise restrictions.
“It really breaks my heart,” DJ Charlotte de Witte, a Belgian who is one of the global stars of the techno scene, said of the order.
Since then, there have been “two new complaints from neighbors,” said the club’s artistic director, Steven Van Belle, who added that the problem was not going away.
“It’s still a hot topic, but the authorities are working on more protections for us,” he said.
Last year’s January closure triggered a spectacular backlash uniting artists, nightclub-goers and politicians.
Several months later, in July, “clubbing” culture was added to the list of intangible heritage for the Brussels region — alongside beer and Belgium’s fritkot stands that sell French fries. The symbolic move was a direct consequence of Fuse’s dilemma.
Closing Fuse would have “imperiled all nightlife” in Brussels, said an aide to the official, Ans Persoons, in charge of the city’s heritage.
With the listing, “the neighbors also have to adapt to what is considered part of the heritage.”
The classification — which is distinct from the internationally recognized UNESCO heritage list — applies to “at least 100 places” in the Brussels region, according to the nightlife federation that lobbied for it.
Twenty Belgian nightclubs, late-hour bars, concert venues and open-air dance festivals round out the list.
To balance their activity — which often spurs the local economy in the areas they are located in — against living standards other residents are entitled to, Brussels regional authorities have drawn up new urban rules to be followed.
They cover planning permits and sound isolation requirements, as well as obligations for the venue’s users — and for direct neighbors.
Van Belle said he was awaiting formalization of those rules, to see them become law once they are voted on by the regional parliament.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his