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.