Castle d’Ursel

When Charles, the second Duke d’Ursel, hired Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni to redesign his summer estate in 1761, he commissioned a man who made his living creating theatrical illusions. Servandoni, famous for his Baroque stage sets and director of decorations at the Paris Opera, was a trompe-l’œil specialist who understood that architecture, like theater, could deceive the eye. The makeover was primarily intended to impress: the façade was raised by means of a curtain wall behind which is empty space, and the towers were given classical balustrades. The ochre-yellow facade still raises eyebrows. The Dukes of Ursel resided here for 350 years until the family sold the castle in 1973. Today it sits in Bornem, some 30 kilometres from Antwerp, along a river corridor once lined with nobility’s strategic fortresses. Servandoni died in relative obscurity in 1766: a man who spent his career making dramatic illusions would likely find this estate’s current quietude the greatest trick of all.