BRUXELLES MA BELLE by Jana Friedrichsen

A M S E L L E X U R B

MA BELLE

Photography by Julien Vermeiren

1. T O P G N I T L E M A , BRUSSELS p. 3-6 2. Y T I C L A U G N I L I AB p. 7-14 3. BRUXELLISATION p. 15-18 4. S G N O S N I S L E S S U R B p. 19-22

“The Palace of Justice of Brussels or Law Courts of Brussels is the most important court building in Belgium. It is located on the Place Poelaert/ Poelaertplein in the Marolles/Marollen district of Brussels.“

T O P G N I T L A ME

''We seem to have forgotten that in this time of rising focus on community and national identity, that Brussels has always been a destination for cultural exchange from abroad.''

Stemming from the psychological shock created by Brexit, a tremor was felt in this capital of Europe, which brought into the minds of the inhabitants of various backgrounds the idea of universal “eurocitizen” belonging and democratic benefits, which everyone could actively take ownership of. In this sense, Brexit had several beneficial effects: It made people aware of the advantages the union gave to everyday life: a common currency, free movement, Erasmus, job creation and image for the city, and the activities aim to improve life for its citizens. The multiculturalism and plurality of expressions in Brussels are a strength, a lever for an original citizenry, unprecedented and exemplary of what an authentic continental union it can become. It reinforced the feeling of belonging to a common capital, founded on a more active community that is engaged in its destiny by the contribution of values and inspirations coming from all the global cultures that make up the city. Brussels is by nature a site of cultural intermingling, notably and originally between Latin and Germanic Delphine Bourgeois

cultures. Its identity was developed and enriched through time with the influence of different cultures: Burgundian, Spanish, French, Austrian, and Dutch. But it was also shaped by the actions of its own inhabitants, with a notable part of immigrant and expatriate inhabitants. During the 20th century, the number of nationals from bordering countries (France, Germany, Holland, United Kingdom) diminished. Other migrant flows took precedences, such as from Poland, Italy or Spain and gained a certain numerical importance. Then, starting in the 1960’s-70’s, the migration from the Maghreb region and Turkey appears, coming on the heels of the accords between Belgium and the countries in the region, as well as the Congolese diaspora linked to the colonial history of Belgium. The last decade of the 20th century was characterised by a European emergence that was not particularly a surprise in a diverse city like Brussels. On the contrary, it reinforced the image of Brussels “the international” and the “melting pot” for its inhabitants. Brussels today resembles a vast agglomeration of cultural bubbles that combine themselves for a truly global vision for the city!

L A U G N I A BIL ''Brussels bilingual? Brussels francophone? Both and neither! “

The Kingdom of Belgium, you must have read somewhere, is a federal state that consist of two big monolingual regions and a tiny bilingual one. Is that so? Not quite. True, Dutch is the sole official language of Flanders, with the exception of “facilities” for French speakers in a handful of communes, mostly around Brussels. True too, French is the sole official language of Wallonia, with the exception of a handful of communes near the German border, where German is the official language. What about the third region, small but densely populated - over 10% of Belgium’s population on 0.5% of its surface the Region of Brussels-Capital? It has two official languages on an equal footing, Dutch and French. This means that all official documents must be published in both languages, that both languages can be spoken in the parliament of the Brussels Region and in the councils of its nineteen municipalities, and that all publicly funded schools must use either Dutch or French as the medium of instruction. In this sense, Brussels is bilingual. Does this mean that its population is bilingual, or at least that all Brusselers can speak either French or Dutch or both? This used to be the case. But the linguistic situation of the Brussels region has changed dramatically over the last two hundred years. Moreover, the beginning of the present century has witnessed a sudden break with some long-term trends.

CITY

''Tourists and police officers on the place Poelaert in the city centre. Perched on top of a Brussels hill, Place Poelaert offers a beautiful panoramic view over the Belgian capital. “

Ever since the language border settled in the early Middle Ages, the bulk of the population of Brussels and its surroundings spoke Brabants, a version of Dutch (or Flemish, which is a variety of Dutch in about the same linguistic sense as American is a variety of English). From the moment the Dukes of Burgundy made Brussels their capital in the 15th century, however, the dominant language in a slowly growing elite was French. In 1830, the Kingdom of Belgium was founded, like the French Republic at the end of the previous century, as an officially monolingual French-speaking state. It is only in 1898 that Dutch, spoken in some version by the majority of the population, was recognized as co-official at the level of the country, without this challenging the position of French in the capital as the dominant language in politics, education and administration. Data on the linguistic competence of Brussels residents are available since shortly after Belgium’s independence [see insert]. What they show, between then and now, is a dramatic fall, from nearly 50% to practically nothing ,in the proportion of Brusselers who know Dutch and no French. This is matched by a no less dramatic increase - from 20% to over two thirds, in the proportion of Brusselers who know French and no Dutch. What happened? Not an exodus of monolingual Flemings compensated by an invasion of monolingual Walloons. Rather, a gradual “Frenchification” of Dutch speakers, whether original residents of Brussels or immigrants from Flanders. From generation to generation, especially after the introduction of compulsory schooling, native speakers of Dutch living in Brussels first acquired French as the language of social mobility, typically by attending a French-medium school, which made

them bilingual. And it the next generation, Dutch got lost as a result of people educated in French deciding not to transmit their native Dutch to their children, since French was anyway sufficient to get along in a Brussels environment increasingly dominated by it. This explains why Dutch-French bilinguals formed a strong relative majority at close to 50% for nearly three quarters of a century, from the end of the 19th century to after World War II. [see Figure 1]. This is the period in which Brussels could be called bilingual in the pretty strong sense that half its population could speak both Dutch and French, a proportion that is now down to about 20%. In the last fifty years or so, the increase in the proportion of Brusselers speaking French and no Dutch was no longer only, nor even mainly caused by this slow process of “Frenchification”. It was further accelerated by two more factors: the arrival of a great many immigrants and expats who knew no Dutch and saw no point in learning it, and the emigration of many Dutchspeaking Brusselers to the Flemish periphery surrounding Brussels, where Dutch was henceforth entrenched owing to the definitive fixation of the language border in the 1960s. One might have thought that these various trends would continue up to a point where practically the whole Brussels population would consist of people knowing French and no Dutch. But with the 21st century came a threefold surprise. There is evidence that three long-term trends suddenly find themselves in the process of being broken. Firstly, for the first time in recorded history, the proportion of Brusselers who know Dutch and no French is slowly increasing. This may be due in part to the growing presence of citizens from the Netherlands, but also

to the decline in the knowledge of French by young people arriving from Flanders. Secondly, the proportion of people who know French and no Dutch has seen its century-long steady progress halted. This has not happened because of more Francophone Brusselers now learning Dutch (even though there is some indication that this is happening too): the proportion of bilinguals French-Dutch keeps falling, indeed more quickly in ten years than in the previous fifty. The main cause is rather to be found in the third and most striking new development: the fast swelling of a category that was insignificant throughout most of Brussels’s recorded linguistic history and now corresponds to 10% of the total: those who know neither Dutch nor French (beyond a rudimentary level), most of whom (8%), it turns out, know no English either. What does all this lead to today? Let us first look, for each of Brussels’ main languages, at the proportion of adults who have it as their native language or one of their native languages (i.e. spoken at home as a child) . French is clearly the dominant language, with two thirds of the Brusselers mentioning it as a native language. This is far more than the 21% for Arabic, which has now overtaken Dutch (20%) as Brussels’ second native language. None of the other languages reaches 5%. It is worth noting, however, that the respondents who report French as their sole native language form only one third of the sample, whereas they were still over 50% five years earlier. The other third consists of people who had French at home as children, but combined with another language, most often Arabic or Dutch. As we turn from native language to linguistic competence, French, as

should be expected, becomes even more dominant, with 89% claiming to know French well or very well. Despite being less often mentioned as a native language than Arabic, Dutch (with 23%) leaps ahead of Arabic (18%) in terms of competence. Contrary to all other languages, there are less adults claiming competence in Arabic than adults who spoke some Arabic at home when they were children. Arabic is not taught at school, and many families of Moroccan origin (close to 20% of the Brussels population) switch entirely to French. Unsurprisingly, however, the most spectacular difference between native language and competence concerns English. With 30% of competent speakers, it has clearly become Brussels’ second language. It is, however, noteworthy, that the proportion of competent speakers in all three of Brussels’ top languages has gone down in 2011 relative to five years earlier: from 96 to 89% for French, from 35 to 30% for English and from 28 to 23% for Dutch. The proportion of people competent in none of these three languages, by contrast, rose over the same period from 2.5 to 8%. To sum up. Brussels is officially bilingual French-Dutch, but the proportion of its population that claims to speak both languages is now down to 20% and still declining. Especially in the last half century, Brussels has become increasingly multilingual in terms of both native language and competence.

Article by Philippe Van Parijs, published in The Brussels Times Tuesday, 1 March 2016

brol masculine noun

From the Brussels dialect “Brusseleir“ , defines a place, a space or house that is disorganised, abandoned or not well taken care of. Generally used in the private home or in a professional work space. “What a brol this room! Clean it!“

Around 80% of people speak french as a mother tongue.

Around 20% of people speak as a mother tongue.

MA BELLE

“Man waiting at a bus station in of Forest/Vorst, a socio-economically diverse district in the South of Brussels.“

A M S E L L E X U BR “Mother and child walking in the skatepark in the Marolles/Marollen, Brussels‘ oldest district.“

“Modern offices in the avenue Delleur, in the Watermael-Boitsfort area.“

”Bruxellization“, in Dutch: verbrusseling, in French: Bruxellisation, is a term used by urban planners to describe the anarchic development of an old city delivered to developers.

A Z I L L E X U BR

The original Brusselization was the type of urban regeneration performed by the city of Brussels in connection with Expo 58. In order to prepare the city for Expo 58, buildings were torn down without regard either to their architectural or historical importance, high-capacity square office/apartment buildings were built, boulevards were created and tunnels dug. Among the most controversial was the large-scale demolition of townhouses for development of the high-rise business district in the Northern Quarter. All of these changes were designed to quickly increase the number of people working and living in the city and improve transportation. Further radical changes resulted from Brussels‘s role as the center of the EU and NATO, beginning with the construction of the European Commission headquarters in 1959. The introduction of a high-speed rail network in the 1990s was the latest excuse to speculate on multiple rows of properties for modern office/hotel redevelopment, which led to the razing of neighborhood blocks near Brussels-South railway station. These changes caused outcry amongst the citizens of Brussels and by environmentalist and preservationist organizations. The demolition of Victor Horta‘s Art Nouveau Maison du Peuple in 1965 was one focus of such protests, (see photograph on right for what now stands on its site), as was the construction of the IBM Tower in 1978.

TION

Many architects protested, and it was the architectural world that coined the name Brusselization for what was happening to Brussels. Architects such as Léon Krier and Maurice Culot formulated an anti-capitalist urban planning theory, as a rejection of the rampant modernism that they saw overtaking Brussels. The 1950s was not the first time that the city had been radically altered by major redevelopment. Two prior sweeping changes to the urban fabric of Brussels were the straight-lined central avenues modeled after Paris, which were created by covering and diverting the Senne river, and the North-South railway connection, which took around 40 years to finish (1911-52) and which had left swaths of the city center filled with debris and craters for decades. Another precedent is the erecting of the Palace of Justice, the largest building in the world constructed in the 1800s. André de Vries asserts that the penchant for heavy-handedness can be traced back to the reign of Leopold II in the late 19th century, and possibly even all the way back to the bombardment of the city by Louis XIV‘s troops in 1695. “There is barely one building still standing“, he says, “from before 1695, with the exception of some churches and the Town Hall“. Leopold II sought to give Brussels the image of a grand capital city of an imperial/colonial power. By the middle 20th century there was a tacit alliance between urban development entrepreneurs and local government, with a modernist agenda and with their sights set firmly on large-scale development projects. The citizens of Brussels were largely left out of the process. In the early 1990s laws were introduced restricting the demolition of buildings that were deemed to have architectural or historical significance; and in 1999 the city authorities‘ urban

development plan explicitly declared high-rise buildings to be architecturally incompatible with the existing aesthetics of the city centre. This led to the rise of what was termed façadisme the destruction of the whole interior of a historic building while preserving its historic façade. These laws were the Town Planning Act 1991, which gave local authorities the powers to refuse demolition requests on the grounds of historical, aesthetic, or cultural significance, and to designate architectural heritage zones; and the Heritage Conservation Act of 1993, which gave the government of the Brussels Capital Region the power to designate buildings to be protected for historic reasons. However, this system had its deficiencies. Whilst the Capital Region government could designate historic buildings, it was the nineteen municipal authorities within it that were responsible for demolition permits. Not until the introduction of a permis unique system was this internecine conflict resolved. Knowledia

“ S E L L E X U ”BRues Brel Jacq

[refrain] C'était au temps où Bruxelles rêvait C'était au temps du cinéma muet C'était au temps où Bruxelles chantait C'était au temps où Bruxelles bruxellait Place de Brouckère on voyait des vitrines Avec des hommes, des femmes en crinoline Place de Brouckère on voyait l'omnibus Avec des femmes, des messieurs en gibus Et sur l'impériale Le coeur dans les étoiles Y avait mon grand-père Y avait ma grand-mère Il était militaire Elle était fonctionnaire Il pensait pas, elle pensait rien Et on voudrait qu'je sois malin [refrain] Sur les pavés de la place Sainte-Catherine Dansaient les hommes, les femmes en crinoline Sur les pavés dansaient les omnibus Avec des femmes, des messieurs en gibus

Et sur l'impériale Le coeur dans les étoiles Y avait mon grand-père Y avait ma grand-mère Il avait su y faire Elle avait laissé faire Ils l'avaient donc fait tous les deux Et on voudrait qu'je sois sérieux [refrain] Sous les lampions de la place Sainte-Justine Chantaient les hommes, les femmes en crinoline Sous les lampions dansaient les omnibus Avec des femmes, des messieurs en gibus Et sur l'impériale Le coeur dans les étoiles Y avait mon grand-père Y avait ma grand-mère Il attendait la guerre Elle attendait mon père Ils étaient gais comme le canal Et on voudrait qu'j'aie le moral

Ah, c‘était au temps où Bruxelles rêvait C‘était au temps du cinéma muet C‘était au temps où Bruxelles dansait ... Au temps où Bruxelles bruxellait

A M , S E L L E ”BRUX

n r a g e n n Dick A

Bruxelles ma belle Je te rejoins bientôt aussitôt que Paris me trahit Et je sens que son amour aigrit Et puis Elle me soupçonne d'être avec toi le soir Je reconnais c'est vrai tous les soirs dans ma tête C'est la fête des anciens combattants d'une guerre Qui est toujours à faire Bruxelles attends-moi j'arrive Bientôt je prends La dérive

Michel te rappelles-tu de la détresse de la kermesse de la gare du Midi? Te rappelles-tu de ta Sophie qui ne t'avait même pas reconnu? Les néons, les Léon, les noms que sublime décadence la danse des panses, Ministére de la biére Artére vers l'Enfer

BELLE“

Place de Brouckere Bruxelles attends- moi j‘arrive Bientôt je prends La dérive Cruel duel celui qui oppose Paris névrose et Bruxelles abruti qui se dit que bientôt Ce sera fini L‘ennui de l‘ennui Tu vas me revoir Mademoiselle Bruxelles Mais je ne serai plus tel que tu m‘as connu Je serai abattu courbatu combattu Mais je serai venu Bruxelles attends, j‘arrive Bientôt je prends La dérive

Paris je te laisse mon lit ...