par Pelgrims, Claire
Référence Conference of the European Association for Urban History (15: 31st August - 4th September: Antwerp)
Publication Non publié, 2022-09-02
Communication à un colloque
Résumé : This paper analyses the successive developments between the Brussels Central Station and the Grand-Place as different ways in which the experiential quality, the speed or slowness of movement and the fluidity of the pedestrian flows have been envisaged over time. It discusses their strong impact on the development and the urban ambiances and experiences in these neighbourhoods.
Brussels is one of the few European capitals to have set up a central station a few steps away from its historic centre. The construction of this station and of the Junction linking the northern and southern national railway network, had a longstanding impact on the neighbourhood in which it was located. In particular, we will look at the successive developments of the spaces between the tourist and heritage neighbourhood surrounding the Brussels Grand-Place and the district of the institutions and the major national mobility infrastructure that were developed along the boulevard built on the underground railway junction.Between this new monumental ensemble and the historic centre, there is a third element made up of emptiness, which had animated the Belgian urban design scene until the beginning of the 21st century. This 'Carrefour de l'Europe', used for car parking for years, was cut by an exit path from the station towards the historic quarter known as the 'Ilôt Sacré'. A shopping arcade was built in the late 1950s in the extension of this exit towards the Grand-Place to solve the problems of pedestrian traffic on congested pavements. The ambition of the public authorities also was to create a continuity of green spaces in this area, supporting qualitative pedestrian paths and linked to the construction of underground car parks. At the end of the 1970s, "pedestrian" spaces appeared on the fringes of the area, extending the shopping arcade outwards. The extension of the pavement in front of the gallery and the creation of a central square organised around a fountain were intended to encourage people to slow down and stop. All these projects illustrate the different ways in which the experiential quality, the speed or slowness of movement and the fluidity of the pedestrian flows between the central station and the Grand-Place have been envisaged over time and how these different aesthetic conceptions have had a strong impact on the development and the urban ambiances and experience of the 'Ilôt Sacré' and the Carrefour de l'Europe neighbourhood.

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