Social housing: La Cité Jardin Wauters, Seraing

It wasn't until the establishment of the National Society for Affordable Houses and Lodgings (Société nationale d'habitations et de logements à bon marché) in 1919 that social housing became an issue in Belgium and Belgian politics. The SNHLBM had branches throughout the country, especially in existing industrial towns and cities.

Up to 1914 the working class mostly knew scandalous living conditions. Many of them lived in alcoves, in cellars or on lofts. Others shared their cramped rooms with other families, often living away from the streets on built-over garden plots. Examples can still be found in the Hors Château district of Liège. Urban regulations were mainly focused on fire safety and building integrity and much less on sanitation and living conditions. Even the few regulations that were put in place were laxly maintained and more often than not evaded by the owners of the buildings.

The Great War of 1914-'18 led to a broadly felt need for change. The politicians owed a debt to the people for their participation in the war effort. Another important factor was the 1917 Russian revolution. So universal suffrage (for men) is introduced. Working hours are reformed to the now familiar three times eight cycle. This meant a fuller citizenship for the working classes. In this climate the creation of social housing becomes one of the main priorities of the Belgian government. New housing was needed to replaces the houses lost during the war years, but also to properly house the working classes so they may vacate their slums.

During the 1920s and 1930s the new housing built under auspice of the SNHLBM was based on the ideals of the English Garden City Movement. These new Cités Jardins ( literally garden cities) allowed people to live in a green environment, away from the workplace. The garden cities of Cheratte (1920) and Tribouillet (1922) are well known examples around Liége. Many architects of the time saw the creation of these new garden cities as an opportunity to create a new urbanism.

The building society La Maison Liégeoise started selection possible locations for new housing in Seraing in 1920. Both local and national governments provide the funds for investing in the construction of these rental houses for the working classes. The SNHLBM organizes a design competition for a garden city in Seraing in 1922. The winning design for this Cité Jardin Wauters was made by the architect Crollaer. He designed a neighbourhood along English garden city principles with curved streets, a central public space, room for allotment gardens and typically diverse placement of the -rows of- housing along the streets. He even includes two closes. The houses were built for the workers of the nearby Cockerill cokes plant and iron works.

The Cité Jardin at Seraing is always compared to the Cité Nord at Zwartberg. This is probably based on the large oval public space and the fact that the Cockerill company had a link with both. Morphologically they are very different. The Cité Jardin Wauters is consistently Unwinesk in its design with the closes (c), the belt road (b) connecting several public spaces (p), the variable building line and buildings that swerve in and out on corners to widen (w) the street space (although in reality these building were not built like that, but with straight corners).

Sillon industriel and beyond

Le Sillon Industriel stretches from the border with France across Wallonia to the border with the Netherlands. The oldest mines (in green) were already in use in the Middle Ages. Because the coal seams lay shallow mining for coal meant little more than digging holes in the ground or digging on the sides of deep river gorges (for instance around the Wurm). In the actual Industrial Valley mining took off after 1810 (shown here in orange). Especially around Liège ironworks were built (shown on the map as "i" ). Around the same time (from about 1820) the small scale mining north of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) was scaled up (also shown in orange). In between these two zinc mines (shown in blue) are located. Around these mines and near Liège zinc factories (indicated with "z") were first built. From around 1900 zinc production expanded northwards to the sparingly populated Campine region. From 1880 onwards but mostly after 1900 mining was expanded west of the ancient and medieval mining sites around Rolduc (Hertogenrade/Herzogenrath). Here many mines were founded in a rather isolated rural area (mines shown in red) around Heerlen, Kerkrade, Schaesberg, Nieuwenhagen, Brunssum, Hoensbroek and Geleen. After 1900 this development moved even further west into Belgium where several large mines (shown in violet) were established. North of these coalfields lignite was mined from about 1900 in open-pit mines (shown in yellow). This is the only form of mining still in practice in this area today!

Industrial revolution: Continental frontrunner Belgium

Belgium was the second country, after Britain, in which the industrial revolution took place and the first in continental Europe. Starting in the middle of the 1810s, and expanding rapidly  after Belgium became an independent nation in 1830, numerous works comprising coke blast furnaces as well as iron works were built in the coal mining areas around Liège and Charleroi. Wallonia (French speaking southern Belgium) was the first region to follow the British model - pioneered from 1760 onward - successfully. The industrialization of Belgium precedes the generally accepted second industrial revolution, when this way of large scale production spread across Europe and Northern America from around 1860 onwards. The second industrial revolution  -according to most historians - started with the invention of steel production by Henry Bessemer in 1855. This Bessemer-process made mass production of steel possible. He also applied himself, unsuccessfully, to the mechanized large scale production of sheet glass.

The groundwork for this was laid by King William I, who had a keen eye for business en invested heavily in industrial activity in the south of his country (the United Kingdom of the Netherlands that encompassed the present day Benelux). He founded the Generale Maatschappij (later: Société Générale de Belgique) in 1822 and the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij (Dutch Trade Company) in 1824. He was very involved in improving existing canals, constructing locks and digging new shipping canals. Some like the Zuid-Willemsvaart still bare his name. King William I also supported William Cockerill in building the largest steam engine plant in Seraing near Liège in 1817. Cockerills company went on to build the first Belgian steamboat in 1820 and the first continental steam locomotive in 1835.

Industrialization had already started during the French occupation of the Low Countries during the first decades of the nineteenth century. These developments were isolated and involved mainly the mechanization of older industries such as cloth making, weaving, saw-milling and the production of cast iron and wrought iron. The locality not seldom the site  of earlier exploitation. In the Borinage region of Wallonia mining started early on (before 1700). The region even gets its name from this; borin or borain means miner in French. The equivalent in the local Picardian dialect is bohren.

The rapid development of extraction and production industries also meant a great demand for workers, supervisors, technical specialists, engineers, etcetera. More often than not the local population was not sufficient to meet demand, which lead to significant migration. The workers had to be provided with housing. Some early examples of this can be found in La Grand Hornu (1810) in Boussu near Mons and Bois du Luc (1838) in Houdeng-Aimeries near La Louvière.

The industry in the so-called Sillon Industriel  (the Industrial Valley) brought much wealth to Belgium, and it was the economic core of the young country. This continued until after World War II, when the importance of Belgian steel, coal and industry began to diminish. This Industrial Valley ran from Mons (Bergen) via Charleroi, Namur (Namen) and Liège (Luik) to Verviers and closely followed a large seam of coal. Beyond Verviers zinc mines were situated around Plombières, Kelmis and Moresnet. Another coal seam is to be found more to the north. This coalfield extends into Germany via the Netherlands and is known as the Mijnstreek. Even further north is the large German coalfield in the Ruhr-basin.

The coalfields in Belgium and The Netherlands are a part of a larger area with coal that runs from Pas-de-Calais (1) in the north of France via the Borinage and Carbonage Central (2), the Meuse basin at Liège (3), the Mijnstreek (4) and the Peel-basin (5) tot the Ruhr-basin (6). The Z signifies the location of several zinc mines.