There are two types of chauvinism.
The commonly extended and known belief that everything that emanates from one's nation is unsurpassed and better than that of any despicable foreign country.
And then there is the other —of which little is said—, which almost consists of making a homeland out of being the worst at something, the one that shouts from the rooftops that no one beats sloppy, roguish, informal or noisy people.
A
guilty
chauvinism proud and eternally indignant with its lamentable national identity.
Inexplicably, in a study conducted a few years ago by the Pew Research Center, the inventors of the term (our upstairs neighbors, in case anyone is clueless) considered their
chauvinism
—in French— it was pulling low, so much so as to share a stretch with the Europeans we love the least: the Spanish.
Surprisingly, and according to these statistics, the Belgians —perhaps also overshadowed by the long shadow of France— were not very buoyant in this matter of national self-esteem either.
Irrefutable proof of this patriotic disdain is the existence of
Ugly Belgian Houses
and its sequel,
More Ugly Belgian Houses .
(More Belgian Ugly Houses), both published by Borgerhoff & Lamberigts.
A sardonic and malicious catalog of architectural horrors of which it seems that the Belgians are well stocked and that, at the height of the paradox, is edited like those volumes that are placed on the living room table to look pretty.
11 years ago, Hannes Coudenys (1982), the evil genius behind this profitable invention that no one can accuse of being an architect, perpetrated a blog about domestic atrocities.
The monstrosities ranged from constructions that emulated Egyptian pyramids to homes that seemed to be the headquarters of some satanic cult, going through impossible window facades, expendable walls, extravagant decorations or the always helpful pastoral inspiration... All of this seasoned with hilarious photo captions.
It is already known that there is no field more fertile for ingenuity than misfortune, whether it be one's own or another's.
But, of course, not everyone liked the idea and the pressure was such that the
vlogger
and businessman decided to give a truce to native ugliness.
Of course, the return of the scourge of real estate nonsense was big.
T-shirts in 2013, the first book in 2015 of a saga that is creating a school and an Instagram account that currently has more than 163,000 followers.
As if the humiliation had not been enough, Coudenys had the idea of inaugurating an audiovisual format in which he would visit the previously denigrated houses to apologize to the owners of the houses.
With
Hannes Says Sorry
, Coudenys showed that he had found the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Coudenys has also learned to appreciate "the beauty that emanates from chaos", and the anger that invaded him every time he observed the architectural landscape has given way to a sort of tenderness in which, according to him, the rest of his compatriots and which has led them to “feel proud of our ugly Belgian houses”.
Someone wanted to emulate the idea in Spain with
Ugly Spanish Houses
, an Instagram account that focused on Galicia and never exceeded half a thousand followers.
She lies dead of starvation.
Even in that we lose!
Or was this winning?
