Description
This workers’ housing estate was designed in 1875 in the north-eastern part of the city, following the creation of the Rue du Carrousel. Designed for the Société anonyme des Habitations ouvrières dans l’Agglomération bruxelloise (SAHAB), the project occupies an entire city block. It is composed of 22 houses for a total of, originally, 166 dwellings. The project was one of the first large-scale social-housing complexes in Brussels. It was intended to accommodate the families who were evicted at the end of the 19th century following the complete restructuring of the Notre-Dame-aux-Neiges neighbourhood, located in the centre of Brussels at the back of the Federal Parliament building. With the exception of the corner buildings, which house commercial spaces on the ground floor, the dwellings feature a repetitive plan. Each building has a central 2-m-wide entrance, flanked by one apartment on either side. Each dwelling has two rooms measuring 4 m by 4 m and a balcony with an outdoor toilet. The façades are sober, with regular rectangular windows. Built in brick, they are plastered in white and highlighted by a few blue-limestone elements such as the sub-basements, stoops, thresholds, and lintels. Although the project was built at once as a whole, it generates a “crenelated” streetscape as the buildings alternate between three and four levels.
Exterior view
Originally published in: Gérald Ledent, Alessandro Porotto, Brussels Housing. Atlas of Residential Building Types, Birkhäuser, 2023.