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Touring Belgium: A Nation’s Patrimony in Print (1830–1920) edited by Maarten Delbeke and Maarten Liefooghe was launched on the top floor of Henri Van de Velde’s Ghent Book Tower on November 12, 2025. A final output from the EU-funded PriArc project, the book explores how Belgian patrimony was constructed in print. Drawing on a wide range of printed media from travel guides and letters to albums, picture postcards, bibliographies and war-time propaganda, Touring Belgium studies the mediation, negotiation and creation of a nation. Instrumental in these efforts were writers like Karl Schnaase and Victor Hugo, museum conservators like Antoine Schayes and Kervyn de Lettenhove, symbolist painters like Hannotiau and innovative lithographers like Simonau, publishers like Geruzet and the Touring club de Belgique, all of which are studied in the book’s eight essays. Through these preoccupations with patrimony, the editors write, “Belgium is crafted as a nation with a history, and as a European crossroads – historic architecture becomes a reality embedded in its territory as much as it is fabricated in print.”

The launch presented lectures by Maarten Liefooghe, Maarten Delbeke and Mari Hvattum; a round table discussion led by the architecture critic Christophe Van Gerrewey and an exhibition of key publications. Touring Belgium is published by Brepols and can be found open access on https://www.brepolsonline.net