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A picture of the future
The Belle van Zuylen tower is an example of how traditional boundaries will fade away. The boundaries between home life and work, between a hotel and a hospital, between virtual and physical worlds. The avant-garde hotel in the Belle tower is used intensively by business people who visit the industrialised region of Utrecht for their work and by tourists from the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) who visit the Netherlands in increasing numbers each year. Their destinations include Utrecht's historic city centre, Slot Zuylen, the many attractive little towns in the province of Utrecht and the Belle van Zuylen tower itself, which has become a monument of international fame on a par with the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao! The private area of the tower is strictly separated from the public and semi-public areas.
In business terms, the ‘Belle van Zuylen’ tower is a typical conglomeration of small and medium-sized businesses. The lower floors house a cluster of creative Dutch Design businesses, fashion studios run by local clothing designers, traditional bakeries and butcher's shops and exclusive confectioners. A typical example of "glocalisation", a new term for acting global and thinking local. But the Belle tower is not the exclusive domain of small and medium businesses; leading companies like RTV Utrecht also have offices there.
In 2015, small and medium-sized businesses are the main providers of employment in the world economy. More and more people are freelancers or self-employed and it is precisely this group that feels completely at home in this multifunctional building with its ambitious residents who are in the prime of their business lives.
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