In November 1894 the new store of the Ghent consumer cooperative Vooruit was inaugurated with sumptuous celebrations. One visitor was struck by the “grandiose vision of splendor and luxury,” while another admired the “long, huge and impressive facade, that instantly caught the attention of every passer-by.”Jules Van Den Huevel, Une citadelle socialiste. Le Vooruit de Gand (Paris, 1897), 6; “Le Vooruit. La coopération et l'organisation socialiste en Belgique,” Musée Social 20 (1897):460. A cascade of similar phrases may be found in books and newspapers of the time. The ornamented exterior of the Vrijdagmarkt became the symbol of a well-functioning social democracy, lending self-confidence to this movement inside and outside Belgium.Guy Vanschoenbeek, Novecento in Gent. De wortels van de sociaal-democratie in Vlaanderen (Antwerp, 1995), 69, 76. The admiration for the building was also accompanied by critical comments varying in view and vigor. Christian-Democratic, bourgeois, and middle-class observers were shocked by the extravaganza of the cooperative store, so distant from their image of the unpretentious cooperative supplying plain goods. Radical socialists and anarchists condemned the bourgeois style of the store as reformist.Jean Puissant, “L'historiographie de la coopération en Belgique,” Revue belge d'Histoire Contemporaine 22 (1991):21–25. The new building catalyzed feelings for and against the social-democratic co-op movement at the same time as it testified to the effervescence of a booming commercial enterprise.