Middelkerke - Westende bench

The iconic Middelkerke bench in white and blue — who doesn't know it?

Like many others, I grew up with them. They have been around since the 1950s and have only changed in small ways.

Recently I saw one in miniature and thought: I can do better than that. I wanted it as true to life as possible. Every detail, every measurement and every proportion had to be right!

So I started at the beginning: measuring. I studied not one but several benches, and noted everything down precisely.

After a lot of digging I even found the original plans, dimensions included!

But that still wasn't enough for me. I wanted something extra… Through Dirk Van den Bossche of ZoeteZee, I got hold of a brochure showing the distinctive tiles that defined the look of our promenade for years (see tile no. 58).

I couldn't let that go, and decided to do something with it. What exactly? Read on 😉

Then came the hardest choice: which version of the bench? Did you know several variants have existed over the years? In the end I chose an older, slightly more authentic model with rounded armrests, unlike the more angular ones of today.

They say there's no arguing about taste and colour, but here there certainly was 😉 (Not easy, especially when you are — like me — partly colour-blind 🤣.) Today's paint isn't what it used to be, thanks to environmental standards and different formulations. Blue also fades in the sun, so one bench can soon look quite different from another. That's why I decided to make two versions: one in a lighter shade close to the current benches, and one in a darker, punchier blue with more character, the way they often used to be (and by the end of summer those looked like today's ones anyway).

And then there are those iconic tiles I mentioned, which graced our promenade for almost a century. They often lay slightly crooked, but they had an unmistakable charm. Working from the brochure I recreated them — perfectly to scale, of course — and placed them under the bench.

The result? A beautiful miniature of a piece of heritage: the Middelkerke bench, on a floor from days gone by.

And in 3 sizes (width × depth × height):

• Large: W 21cm × D 9cm × H 9cm
• Medium: W 16cm × D 6.5cm × H 7cm
• Small: W 10.5cm × D 4.5cm × H 4.5cm

These are the dimensions of the bench itself; the floor is about 1cm larger than the bench on each side.

and as Steve Jobs would have said: There's one more thing...

Would you like a truly personal version, with your own text instead of Middelkerke - Westende? Choose a variant marked Gepersonaliseerd above — for €5 extra we make it to order. Two input fields then appear on this page, already filled in with Middelkerke and Westende. Change whatever you want changed and simply leave whatever can stay (e.g. Gino - Marianne, or Gino - Westende if you only want to replace one side).