Apart from the greenery of the dense ivy, the facade of the Lange Leemstraat 53 is an inconspicuous example in a long row of facades in the street near the Stadspark. But anyone who takes the trouble to stop in front of the door and peek between the ivy will notice the memorial stone for poet Paul van Ostaijen. The Poet of Boom Timpani was born here in 1896, wrote his first poems there and left when he was 17. Still, the writer who would gain worldwide fame for his modernist poetry spent more than half of his life there. Van Ostaijen was only 32 years old.

Van Ostaijen’s parental home with a living area of ​​425 m² is today offered for sale by Bosschaert & Rochtus Vastgoed for 667,000 euros. The house is divided into three studios, a roof apartment with mezzanine and a 3-bedroom apartment with office space on the ground floor. The floor in the entrance hall would still be authentic.

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When the ground floor was up for rent two years ago, writer Matthijs de Ridder moved in. The man of letters, who has been working in Van Ostaijen’s oeuvre for over twenty years, is working on a biography of the poet. The Knight brought the book Boom Timpani from, in which the genesis and history of Occupied City specified will be released. In addition, he was able to include 65 poets and wonders in the anthology Infected City to provide a contemporary answer to Occupied City.

The Van Ostaijen year kicked off on 21 February with a Facebook Live broadcast from Lange Leemstraat 53. The Paul van Ostaijen Society, which was founded in 2009, also took place at the same address. De Ridder himself, who had previously intended to provide more information to the birthplace “one of the greatest in Dutch literature”, does not wish to comment on its sale.

Van Ostaijen’s birthplace would today belong to Dirk Rochtus, who had housed his law firm until 2019 and who was also one of the founders of the Paul van Ostaijen society. From 2013 to 2019, the lawyer was a member of the Antwerp municipal council in Bart De Wever’s team. Rochtus himself could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Whether the City of Antwerp is interested in purchasing the property to accommodate a cohesive van Ostaijen museum? “Nevertheless, Van Ostaijen was not born in that house in the Lange Leemstraat, but he largely wrote his oeuvre to elders,” says Roel Veyt of the Culture cabinet. “Antwerp wants to preserve and present Van Ostaijen’s literary canon in the best possible conditions. One point of this van Ostaijen year was the exhibition in any case Boom Paukeslag. Occupied City 100!, this spring in the Letterenhuis. For the first time lost there was also the long-held manuscript of it Occupied City to behold.”

That manuscript, which is now kept and made accessible in the Letterenhuis, was purchased by the Flemish Community at the beginning of this year after discreet negotiations with an anonymous collector. Thanks to the Masterpieces Decree, Flanders had a veil of 725,000 euros for this ‘holy grail’. Or about 80,000 euros above the sales price of Van Ostaijen’s birthplace.