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ground in the city Under g aller EnPlease drop me in the box as you leave y texts Down the rabbit hole 1 We experience what is happening above ground on a daily basis, but what lies underneath the earth’s surface is usually hidden from view. And because that world is largely terra incognita for us, what happens there is shrouded in mystery. Stories about tunnels used to access and rob banks or as secret escape routes capture our imagination. By their very nature, illegal resistance movements operate ‘underground’, shunning the spotlight. The underground scene of artistic subcultures also prefers to avoid the glare of public attention. Besides arousing our curiosity, the unknown frightens us. The devil and other monstrous creatures are said to be lurking deep under the ground. Sewage workers would be well advised to offer up a quick prayer before removing a manhole cover. On the other hand, it is to the earth that we entrust our most cherished treasures. Venture down below and a wondrous world will open up to you! 1.1 Hepworth Manufacturing Company, The deep and Alice in Wonderland, 1903 mysterious underground It is very difficult to fathom what 1.2 Walt Disney Productions, is actually happening inside the earth Alice in Wonderland, 1951 and for a long time this was a matter of guesswork. Even now the deepest 1.3 In 1877 Thomas Wallace Knox, an Ameri- drilling operations into the earth’s can journalist and author of adventure crust are mere pinpricks. stories, wrote a weighty tome entitled The German priest and scholar Athana- The Underground World: a mirror of life sius Kircher tried to explain a number below the surface, with vivid descrip- of phenomena in the influential book tions of the hidden works of nature and he wrote in 1664: Mundus subterraneus, art, comprising incidents and adven- quo universae denique naturae tures beyond the light of day… divitiae. For example, he attributed This illustration was next to the title tides to the flow of water in and out page. It encapsulates how the under- of an underground ocean. world both fascinates us and fills us with fear. UC Berkeley Bancroft Library 1.4 Athanasius Kircher, d’Onder-aardse Bank robberies weereld in haar Goddelijk Maaksel In 2019 the underground strongroom of en wonderbare uitwerkselen a branch of the BNP Paribas Fortis bank aller dingen (The underground world in Antwerp was broken into. It soon in its divine creation and the wondrous transpired that the thieves had reached workings of all things, 1682) the strongroom through the sewers Most of the Mundus subterraneus and through tunnels they had dug. has never been translated into English Another notorious and not dissimilar from its original Latin editions. bank robbery was carried out by Albert Ghent University Library Spaggiari in the French coastal city of Nice in 1976. Spaggiari and his team 1.5 Jules Verne, Reis naar het middelpunt spent days digging a tunnel from the van de aarde (Journey to the Centre sewers to the underground wall of of the Earth), 1974 (1864) the bank vault and then a weekend Two centuries after Athanasius Kircher, drilling through the wall. They seized Jules Verne wrote his science-fiction gold bars and jewellery worth tens classic Journey to the Centre of of millions of euros. Later on, Spaggiari the Earth (1864), in which he described wrote an account of the raid in Les underground sea plains similar to Kirch- égouts du paradis (translated into er’s underground oceans. Today the English as Fric-Frac: The Great Riviera existence of such seas is considered Bank Robbery (1979) and The Sewers to be impossible. Private collection of Gold (1981)). The book sold well. Spaggiari was secretly involved 1.6 Mouth of the Mephisto worm in making the film version in 1979. (Halicephalobus mephisto) However little we know even today 1.7 Extract from the VRT journal about what is happening in the deep of February 5th 2019 layers of the earth’s crust, recent VRT image archive discoveries prove that there are forms of life in deep layers of rock. It was 1.8 Albert Spaggiari, Les égouts du long believed that single-celled organ- paradis. Sans haine, sans violence isms are the only life at great depth. et sans arme, 1978 Rotor But then in 2011 the Ghent professor Gaetan Borgonie found a microscopic 1.9 Excerpt from the filming of worm 3.6 km deep in water that Spaggiari’s Les égouts du paradis had been cut off from the surface by José Giovanni in 1979 of the earth for thousands of years. The animal was named the Mephisto 1.10 Medieval underground ‘torture worm (Halicephalobus mephisto) chambers’ in Gravensteen castle after Mephistopheles because, like in Ghent, 1875–1930 the devil, it shuns the daylight to seek Ghent Archives / Ghent University Library out the deepest caverns of the earth. Ghent University, Faculty of Science, Biology Department 1.11 This mask of the devil was used At the bottom by the Ghent St Michael’s Guild in its of the ladder annual procession from the seven- The Frenchman Gustave Doré (1832– teenth to the nineteenth centuries. 1883) is best known for his illustrations It represents the battle between of literary masterpieces. For example, Saint Michael, the guild’s patron saint, he illustrated Dante Alighieri’s Divine and the fallen angels. This mask was Comedy, a fourteenth-century epic worn by the person playing the part about an imaginary journey to heaven, of the devil. STAM purgatory and hell. In 1872, Doré and the British journalist 1.12 Coin hoard consisting of 36 coins, William Blanchard Jerrold joined forces c. 17–18, found in Overmere and published a beautifully illustrated in 1967 STAM book entitled London: A Pilgrimage, documenting all strata of mid-Victorian London. The poorest workers are depicted working deep underground Resistance in some of the darkest and most When the world above ground is unsavoury places in the city. These plagued by dictators, war, censorship representations endorse the image of or violence, the invisible world society as a pyramid, with the helpless, under the ground provides a clandes- poorest section of the population at tine place of refuge. Resistance the bottom and the rich elite at the top. publications, like La Libre Belgique newspaper banned by the German 1.15 Gustave Doré and William Blanchard occupier, were printed in cellars. Jerrold, London: A Pilgrimage, 1872 In novels and films, too, networks Ghent University Library of underground tunnels, dungeons and other subterranean spaces 1.16 Illustrations from: are frequently associated with Dante, Die göttliche Komödie, 1861 resistance and hope. Gustave Doré and William Blanchard Jerrold, London: A Pilgrimage, 1872 1.13 La Libre Belgique, 1940 Gustave Doré, La Ménagerie Amsab-ISG, Ghent parisienne, 1854 Ghent University Library / 1.14 Movie clips Bibliothèque nationale de France Matrix Reloaded, Wachowski brothers / sisters (2003) 1.17 Metropolis, Fritz Lang, 1927 Metropolis, Fritz Lang (1927) The concept of a literally stratified soci- V for Vendetta, James Mc Teigue (2005) ety also plays an important role in Fritz Fantastic Mr Fox, Wes Anderson (2009) Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis. The story Batman Begins, revolves around an imaginary city in Christopher Nolan (2005) the year 2026, in which the population Kanal, Andrzej Wajda (1956) is divided into ‘thinkers’, who live in luxury above ground, and ‘workers’ forced to slave away in the mines. Sewers 1.22 Manhole and cover of a drainage A contemporary city cannot function inspection chamber Farys without an efficient sewage system. And if it is to be efficient, it requires 1.23 A false façade conceals an entrance constant maintenance. Many sewage to the underground rail network workers compare their first day in London (Leinster Gardens) Arvind Roy working in the sewers to a descent into hell because of the difficult work- 1.24 Replica of the foot of the bronze ing conditions, the darkness, the statue of Hermes (Mercury) by stench, the gasses, the vermin and Giambologna (1529–1608) from the permanent danger of drowning. the collection in the Louvre in Paris Some mythical creatures and gods 1.18 Anekdoten uit de riool (stories are associated with the transition from the sewer) documentary from above ground to below ground. Riolenmuseum / Musée des Égouts, Brussels In Greek mythology, the god Hermes is the conductor of souls. 1.19 Sewage workers’ boots, c.20 It is his job to accompany the shades Riolenmuseum / Musée des Égouts, Brussels of the deceased to the underworld. With his winged feet, Hermes is at 1.20 Marc Witpas, a worker who maintained home in both worlds. He commutes the sewage network under Brussels between light and darkness. for decades, once carved this Private collection sentence in the walls of the collector under Bergensesteenweg / Chaussée de Mons: “When I die, I will go to heaven, because here I lived in hell.” Underground culture Riolenmuseum / Musée des Égouts, Brussels The underground culture is a counterculture strongly opposed to the tastes of the public at large and to commercial profit. Those The gates to who share the beliefs of this move- the underground ment are generally involved in The entrances to the underground music, the visual arts and literature. are unusual. They are often concealed in the streetscape under 1.25 Raves in Brussels, Ostend, a heavy manhole cover or behind Berlin and Liège a false façade. Julien Sigalas, Antoine Paroute, Erich Fertig en Faune 1.21 Saint Barbara is the patron saint of those at risk of sudden death, 1.26 Selection of record sleeves from particularly people who work under- the Nurse with Wound list, 1979 ground, like sewage workers, Compiled by the Nurse with miners, navvies and tunnel builders.