the troubled history of a park
Brussels’ Botanical Garden (image Hans Porochelt/Flickr) can feel like a little green oasis in the middle of an endless concrete jungle. It is one of the few real parks within walking distance from the inner city and the only one in Sint-Joost, the city’s most densely populated borough (more about that here). The Jardin Botanique or Kruidtuin can also be very photogenic, with its hidden corners, elegant statues and office towers in the background. One could say it is a kind of tiny Central Park.
It may surprise you then that this essential patch of greenery has known some very turbulent times since it was laid out in 1826 (making a few years older than the Belgian state). The park quickly became a reference point, and in 1852 the famous French writer Victor Hugo called it the best thing in Brussels together with the Grand’Place (”Bruxelles possède deux merveilles uniques au monde : la Grand’Place et le panorama du Jardin Botanique“). Check this postcard of a 19th Century painting by Henri Borremans:
This is another postcard from the 1930′s:
By that time part of the park was doomed though. The building of the railway connection across the city did not only entail massive destruction of the old city fabric (briefly explained here). One end of the central city tunnel is right under the Botanical Garden. The park was cut in two during the construction and after the opening of the tunnel in 1952 the division was made permanent by a new road… this still exist today as is seen on this photograph from Sarah Joy/Flickr.
More destruction would follow only a few years later when the new fast lanes (2 x 2) of the inner ring road were put right into the Botanical Garden. A tunnel under the existing boulevard would have been a lot more complicated because it had to cross the train tunnel, so the planners of the day decided this was the best option… here a photo from construction site. What remains of the park is on the left side.
This is how it looks today on a bright day. The park is on the right this time. The historic wall on the left used to be limit of the Botanical Garden (photo William Murphy/Flickr).
What about the future? Bas Smets, Brussels’ contemporary star landscape architect has made plans to make the road cutting across the park a little greener. Propositions have been made in the past to put a roof over the inner ring road in order to reconnect the park with the city centre, but this is not likely to happen any time soon. The more future-proof thing to do though, is probably rethinking all of the inner ring road (and other urban highways) as argued here.
