Cité-Jardin Bon Air, Brussels

The site where the garden village was built had initially been condemned, which is even more salient given the name of Cité Bon Air / Tuinwijk Goede Lucht that literally translates as Good Air Neighbourhood. The Housing Society Anderlechtse Haard starts work on building a new garden village on the site near the Avenue d'Itterbeeck, an important thoroughfare, in 1921.The new garden village is completed in 1923 in what was at the time the countryside outside the Brussels-conurbation. Nowadays the ring road of Brussels separates this garden village from the urbanized area of Anderlecht.

The parcelling maximises the plot available to accommodate the 225 houses on 28 hectares of which part was set aside as an orchard. The garden village is situated north of the Avenue d'Itterbeeck, an important thoroughfare that links Anderlecht to the village of Itterbeek. The site for the garden village is situated on the edge of the floodplain of the Broekbeek (literally: Marsh Brook). Before building work started the level had to be raised by piling on waste and soil from elsewhere. Commercial space was not provided for by the Housing Society, only leisure and education facilities. Shops were built on the old thoroughfare directly opposite the garden village.

The heart of the oldest part is the Place de Croix Rouge / Rode Kruisplein (Red Cross Square - C). Next to this a later functional unit is inserted into the layout consisting of a large playing field (Place Séverine - P), a secondary school (S) and a Kindergarten (K).The streets in the eastern part were given names commemorating socialist figureheads (indicated with *).

Most of the houses situated on curving streets and small squares are built in a style similar to that of Cité de la Roue. The name chosen for this garden village signifies the promise of a better life outside of the city in a semi-rural setting. At the time the development lay isolated surrounded by open fields which posed difficulties for the inhabitants in getting to their place of work. All the streets of the first building campaign were given uplifting names evoking this sense of a new and better life away from the city: Rue de l’Hygiène / Hygienestraat (Hygiene Street), Avenue de la Salubrité / Heilzaamheidslaan (Salutary Avenue), Rue de la Santé / Gezondheidsstraat (Good Health Street), Avenue de la Tempérance / Onthoudingslaan (Temperance Avenue), Avenue de la Fécondité / Vruchtbaarheidslaan (Fecundity Avenue), Rue du Bonheur / Geluksstraat (Happiness Street) and Rue de l’Enthousiasme / Geestdriftstraat (Enthusiasm Street). The streets in the second -eastern- part are named after notable people within the labour movement.

The layout of this garden village is clearly based on the layouts incorporated in the 1920s book Tuinsteden by G Feenstra. The street layout combines curving streets with shorter straight streets around a large open space. The street junctions are Unwinesque in character with housing blocks that are angled back creating mostly triangular, small greens. The treatment of the junction of the older roads (Avenue d'Itterbeeck and Rue du Pommier) as a village green suggests that another garden village was imagined further south.

The garden village was constructed in several building phase, the first of which lasted from 1921 until the end of 1923. Hereafter the houses in the northern half of the eastern part were constructed between 1925 and '28. The garden village was finished by subsequent buildings in the last quadrant. In the 1950s three apartment blocks were erected near the shops. The schools are part of the second phase of development, but the secondary school is stylistically later, from the late 1920s early 1930s. The building of the Kindergarten is akin to the one in the Cité de la Roue. In true socialist fashion no church was provided. A church was built during the 1970s on a site near the garden village.

The difference in street names can be attributed to the staggered way in which this garden village was developed. The streets in the first phase all bare iconic socialist names. Later these abstract concepts were replaced with people connected to the labour movement as a way of providing street names. 

The area around the Place Séverine / Séverineplein differs from the curvaceous Unwinesque layout by introducing an orthogonal insert. A central axis runs from the spot where the Avenue Tempérance meets the Avenue de la Fécondité to the Avenue d'Itterbeeck. This axis bisects the large green square, runs through the middle of both school buildings and is picked up as a formal avenue with trees (Avenue Auguste Bourgeois). Both the Rue Léon Nicodème and Rue Gaston Coudyser run parallel to this axis. The back building line of the houses on the place Séverine and the Kindergarten are oriented on small greens in the older layout (Rue de la Modestie and Place de Croix Rouge).

The orthogonal insert blends in well with its surroundings because the axis are oriented on important nodes in the older layout. Such a hybrid layout with worth curving and straight streets are also included in the 1920s book Tuinsteden by G Feenstra and can be traced to the contemporary garden design of the time.

As with many of these garden villages in Belgium the political climate changed to favour homeownership during the 1980s which lead to many of the houses owned by housing societies to be sold to the occupants or investors. This combined with little limitations towards home improvement have lead to often detrimental alterations. The whole of the garden village is still recognisable due to its isolated position on the other side of the motorway. The communal gardens and playgrounds behind the houses have been converted into parking spaces. Of the orchards edging the Cité Bon Air sadly only a few trees remain. The ornamental cherry trees in the streets still remain in large parts. This excellent example of a garden village could be easily restored to its former glory!

Plant Fair

Silly me thought it would be relaxing to visit a Belgian garden fair last weekend. To say it was busy with people would be an understatement of the long queues at the entrance, at the café and at the toilets. I arrived an hour after opening to find that some stands were already through half of their plants. This lead me to a spat of power shopping moving at pace along the stands and exhibits. And sure I bought more than I ever intended despite the shopping list I had prepared. Well, such is life!

Cité-Jardin de la Roue: fading glory of social housing.

The oldest housing is located on the northside near the Rue des Loupes / Wolvenstraat. These houses are halfway between the older tradition of workers housing in long terraces of identical dwellings and the garden city approach with short terraces and a great diversity in individual expression. Here the long rows of houses are visibly broken up in the architecture thus emphasising every single dwelling.

The 1030s Art Deco church stands on the Place de la Roue / 't Radplaats, an open space created on the side of the garden village along an older route. Behind the church a playground was built that still functions as such. The garden village aesthetic comes across clearly in the use of privet hedges lining the streets and front gardens. This gives great unity and the hedges link the separate terraces and semidetached houses.

The architecture around the Plaine des Loisirs / Lustplein is typical for the first phase of construction (on streets with a strong socialist theme). The houses are often part of terraces of 6 to 8 houses mixed with shorter ones (of 4). The architecture is typically vernacular with facades faced in brick and render.

The corners are given extra attention to emphasise the spatial distribution of housing blocks and the short sight lines so typical of the garden city aesthetic. In the oldest part a kindergarten (Kindertuin / Jardin d'Enfants) was built in the same style as the housing as the first community facility.

The Plaine des Loisirs is a large open space behind the kindergarten laid to lawn and surrounded by trees (horse chestnuts, a typical plant for the 1920s). Due to the law that regulated for an eight hour working day, the working classes now had spare time to enjoy. This large open space was aimed at facilitating leisure activities, hence also the name.

The functional details are used as ornament in this style of vernacular architecture. Here the side of a short terrace with an impressive chimney, a dainty corner window and a mansard roof creating a third storey and thus greatly increasing the living space. Short terraces of 4 or 6 (shown on the right) dominate the straight streets. The facades and roofs are broken up creating an interesting visual experience.

The vernacular architecture of the garden village Cité de la Roue is consistently designed with few layouts in many types. Each type differs in the position of the front door, the distribution of brick verses rendered portions and the shape of the often expressive compound roofs. The wide streets with front gardens and small trees give it a typical garden village feel.

The housing in the second phase of construction (on the streets named after notable socialist figures) is less elaborate compared to the first phase. The basic design component are still used in the same way with facades in a combination of brick and render and privet hedges around front gardens.

The architecture in the second building phase is very similar to that of the first phase, but with shorter terraces and less elaborate details. These semidetached properties are located on the Place Ministre Wauters. Private decisions on colour effect the overall effect of the buildings, but better a two-tone facade than the neglect visible in other parts of the Cité.

The buildings built during the letter stages of the second building phase are different in the use of fully rendered facades, few decorative details and simple roofs. The garden village feel is however retained, even though the placement of the buildings is more orthogonal. This is typical for developments from the late 1920s into the early 1930s.

The houses around the Place Ernest S'Jonghers are in the same simplified fully rendered style. The houses here are lower and have been designed using typical Unwinesque layouts creating a classic close around a communal garden.

Cité-Jardin de la Roue, Brussels

In the twenty-year period when the garden city movement flourished in Belgium several medium to small sized developments were built, mostly near large cities. The ideas for building these garden villages to relieve larger cities by building self-sufficient neighbourhoods come from England and the Netherlands (mainly through the book Tuinsteden by  G Feenstra from 1920). The aim was to create new garden villages on the edge of the overpopulated suburbs of Brussels. Around Brussels many were planned, but only some 15 projects were built. Three of these are located in Anderlecht an historic city that is now one of the nineteen municipalities that make up the Brussels-Capital Region (and thus comparable to a London Borough).

The Housing Society Anderlechtse Haard (Hearth of Anderlecht) was founded in 1907 after the example of Dutch Housing Cooperatives that were created from 1901 onwards. The Housing Society played an important role in delivering new social housing. In three places this took the shape of a garden village: La Roue / Het Rad, Bon Air / Goede Lucht and Moortebeek.

Anderlechtse Haard funded the first social housing to be built in Anderlecht in 1908 on the Rue des Colombophiles (Duivenmelkersstraat) and Rue des Citoyens (Burgerstraat). After WW1 a garden village was developed on the adjacent land. This Cité de la Roue or Tuinwijk Het Rad was built during the 1920s on a site near the Canal Brussels-Charleroi and the railway to Ghent. The name of the new garden village was derived from the former breaking wheel of Anderlecht that stood here. Such a wheel was a torture device used for capital punishment of the worst criminals and as a means of displaying the body.

Work started in 1921. The placement of the buildings and the layout of the streets and public spaces was designed by the well known urbanist Louis Van der Swaelmen. The new garden village was spatially little more than an extension of the late 19th century neighbourhoods of Anderlecht built for rehousing people displaced by the construction of the Law Courts in the Marolles-district of Brussels and the covering of the Senne. It greatly differs however from the neighbouring areas in layout and type of houses built. The plan comprised of short streets around larger open spaces with short terraces amounting to 688 dwellings in total.

The houses designed by the architects Pompe, Meckmans, , Brunfaut, De Koninck, Jonghers and Voets are based on the so-called Dutch type. Each house had a similar floor plan with a reception room, separate kitchen, three bedrooms, an attic and a small garden. The houses were designed in a limited number of layouts that mostly differed in exterior design and materials used and that were situated along the streets alternatingly to prevent monotony. In total almost 60 different looking houses were built. In 1938 a school, designed by Henri Wildenblanck in a modernist cubist style and a church dedicated to St Joseph, designed by Van Hove in a brick art deco style, were added. The primary school dates from the first building phase.

The garden village of La Roue / Het Rad (literally The Wheel) was built in several stages between 1922 and 1928 and has a layout of streets parallel to a main thoroughfare with some open public spaces that anchor the older roads and new oblique streets into a father formal street plan. These open spaces are the Plaine des Loisirs (1), Place Ministre Wauters (2) and Place de la Roue (3). Two closes have been incorporated: Place du Confort (4) and Place Ernest S'Jonghers (5). No shops were part of the garden village, only community buildings such as primary school (A), secondary school (B) and the church of St Joseph (C); a community hall was originally part of the plans, but was never built. The garden village nestles between pre-existing buildings and notably the old social housing of 1908. 

The older streets have prospective socialist names: Rue de l'Energie / Wilskrachtlaan (Will-power Street), Avenue de la Persévérance / Volhardingslaan (Perseverance Avenue), Rue de la Volonté / Wilstraat (Free Will Street), Rue des Huit Heures / Achturenstraat (Eight Hour Street), Place du Confort / Komfortstraat (Comfort Street), Plaine des Loisirs / Lustplein (Leisure Plain), Rue du Savoir / Kennisstraat (Knowledge Street), Rue de la Mécanique / Werktuigkundestraat (Mechanics Street), Avenue des Droites de l'Homme / Mensenrechtenlaan (Human Rights Avenue), Rue de l'Emancipation / Ontvoogdingsstraat (Emancipation Street), Rue de la Solidarité / Solidariteitsstraat (Solidarity Street), Rue du Symbole / Zinnebeeldstraat (Symbol Street), Rue des Plébéiens / Plebejersstraat (Plebeian Street), avenue de la Société Nationale / Nationale Maatschappijlaan (National Housing Society Avenue) and Rue des Citoyens / Burgersstraat (Citizens Street). Later streets were named after important socialist figures and politicians: Minister Joseph Wauters, Guillaume Melckmans, Jacques Boon, Ernest S'Jonghers, Guillaume Hoorickx and Pierre van Winghen.

The garden village is at present one of the most deprived areas in Anderlecht. Maintenance of the complex is lax at best and in places empty properties have been boarded up. It is a shame to see how Belgium treats its urban heritage. The Cité de la Roue is not even designated as a protected site of historic and social importance. The inhabitants have however successfully prevented the demolition of the Cité and have secured investment to improve the area.