|
|
Designing urban space: the Antwerp cités ouvrières, 1865 – 1885.
| Nineteenth century local governments were constantly faced with the challenge to give shape to the spatial structure of the towns and cities of which they were in charge. Their task in creating the urban environment was not just limited to (re)defining its physical structure by developing new streets, squares and quarters but by shaping the physical space local governments also intended to bring about particular social effects. This paper will examine the issue of the “social design” of urban neighbourhoods by studying the case of early Antwerp social council housing during the final quarter of the nineteenth century.
In the course of the second half of the nineteenth century, Antwerp witnessed a spectacular increase in both its seize as well as in its population figure, a process which went together with fundamental spatial transformations. These changes were particularly visible in the city's fifth ward, which had been located extra muros until 1864, when the Spanish fortifications which enclosed the city were demolished. As a result of this development the fifth ward, which until then had been characterised by a rather rural nature, changed into the most rapidly growing residential area of the city to which many workers from both within and outside Antwerp came to dwell. It is within this context that the Antwerp poor relief bureau, the Bureau de Bienfaisance, operated when it came to be the first local authority in Belgium to develop a large-scale plan in order to construct houses intended for the working classes, grouped in three cités ouvrières which were built in the fifth ward during the period between 1865 and 1885.
In the first place this paper will examine the ideological framework on the basis of which the Bureau de Bienfaisance acted and the presuppositions with regard to the relation between physical structure and human behaviour which it employed in order to defend the development of these cités ouvrières. In addition to these questions, this paper will also look at the criteria which were used to admit tenants into the cités and will attempt to expose whether or not this policy provided these estates with a specific social profile. The second part of this paper will be focused on the issue of the social significance of the implantation of these cités, which did not operate in a vacuum but were grounded in a constantly developing neighbourhood. By studying neighbour's quarrels this paper will examine the question of communal living both within these cités as between the cités and their surrounding areas, in order to verify if the spatial interventions of the Bureau de Bienfaisance – which were based on the ideas discussed in the first part – had the desired effects in the daily relations within the neighbourhood.
|
|
|
|
