Bricks of wrath: (Re)building the IJzertoren memorial (1925-1930 and 1952-1965)

Between 1925 and 1929, the IJzertoren [Yser tower] memorial was built on the Yser river bank in the Belgian town Dixmude. Both war memorial and monument to Flanders' struggle for political emancipation, the tower became an increasingly charged and divisive symbol in interwar Belgium, and its construction was highly ideologized. This situation, exacerbated by the tower's associations with collaborationism in the next war, would ultimately lead to its intentional destruction in 1946 under suspicious circumstances. The subsequent questions, if, how and by whom the tower should be reconstructed, refueled these debates. Despite ambitious reconstruction plans, the memorial was eventually rebuilt between 1952 and 1965 as a slightly modified and upscaled replica of the old tower, an approach that deliberately rejected modern design references or construction methods. The lengthy construction process itself was operationalized in propaganda and iconography of the annual Flemish nationalist rallies that were staged on the building site.