Author(s): Charlotte Van den Broeck

Architecture

A spellbinding new talent explores the dark side of creativity through the stories of thirteen tragic architects.
'What a sensible, intelligent and beautiful book' Stefan Hertmans, author of War and Turpentine
In thirteen chapters, Belgian poet Charlotte Van den Broeck goes in search of buildings that were fatal for their architects - architects who either killed themselves or are rumoured to have done so. They range across time and space from a church with a twisted spire built in seventeenth-century France to a theatre that collapsed mid-performance in 1920s Washington, DC., and an eerily sinking swimming pool in her hometown of Turnhout. Drawing on a vast range of material, from Hegel and Charles Darwin to art history, stories from her own life and popular culture, patterns gradually come into focus, as Van den Broeck asks- what is that strange life-or-death connection between a creation and its creator? Threaded through each story, and in prose of great essayistic subtlety, Van den Broeck meditates on the question of suicide - what Albert Camus called the 'one truly serious philosophical problem' - in relation to creativity and public disgrace. The result is a profoundly idiosyncratic book, breaking new ground in literary non-fiction, as well as providing solace and consolation - and a note of caution - to anyone who has ever risked their hand at a creative act.

Review: Everyone fails every day, but an architect's failure is inescapably visible, a public humiliation, even when it doesn't occasion loss of life . . . That the relationship between creator and creation can become so deleterious is a source of obsession for Charlotte Van den Broeck . . . Bold Ventures resembles a pop version of Iain Sinclair's psychogeography or Out of Sheer Rage, Geoff Dyer's anti-biography of DH Lawrence -- Olivia Laing * Guardian *
Bold Ventures is a unique survey of artistic creation, and is full of memorable scenes and insights -- Will Wiles * Literary Review *
What a sensible, intelligent and beautiful book -- Stefan Hertmans, author of War and Turpentine
A darkly comic meditation on the nature of creativity and the narrow margins between triumph and despair. Part memoir, part travelogue and part reflection, this unique and hugely engaging book takes a fresh look at the tragicomic condition of being human -- Carolyn Steel, author of Sitopia
A gorgeous and roving debut . . . Van den Broeck's exploration extends beyond the lives and works of her subjects, turning into both a philosophical meditation on creativity and a brilliant character study of misunderstood artists. The result is a genre-bending work that's sure to fascinate those interested in art and architecture, as well as anyone curious about the dangerous mechanisms of the creative mind * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *
While going on essayistic quests that take her around the globe, Van den Broeck traces stories of self-complacency, fear of failure and destiny. Indirectly, she researches the link between building and writing. Isn't every author bold by default, after all? In Bold Ventures she lives up to her ambition * De Morgen *
Van den Broeck has a very keen eye. But she also has a great mind, making transitions between philosophical contemplations and journalistic passages seem effortless * De Standaard *

Author Biography: Charlotte Van den Broeck (Author) Charlotte Van den Broeck (born in 1991) is a Belgian author. Her first collection of poetry, Chameleon (2015), was awarded the Herman de Coninck Debut Prize. Nachtroer (2017) won the triennial Paul Snoek Prize for the best collection of Dutch-language poems. David Colmer's English translation of these two collections was published as a single volume by Bloodaxe Books in 2020. In 2019 she published her prose debut Waagstukken (Bold Ventures). The book was a Dutch bestseller, won the Confituur Boekhandels Prize, the Dr Wijnaendts Francken Prize and was shortlisted for the Boekenbon Literature Prize and the Jan Hanlo Essay Prize. Her third collection of poems, Earth Rubbings, was published in Dutch in 2021.