A few weeks ago, the RTD-team visited Charleroi. When approaching Charleroi by train, immediately, the stereotypes of a city in decay are confirmed, the old rusted ruins of the factories stand as evidence of a better past. Yet, during the day we saw some specks of beauty in the city, and we felt an ambition to improve the conditions of its citizens.
The first visit was to E6K and A6K, a new open-plan office combining R&D teams from different large corporations with a learning environment for engineers and specialized labour, meant to boost new the new types of industry in Charleroi. There were two guest appearances: the largest supercomputer in Belgium and Paul Magnette. You can probably come up with your own lazy joke comparing the two, however, your correspondent won’t stoop that low.
Next, we visited the architecture bureau “Reservoir A”, inhabiting a carefully renovated building along the Meuse. There, multiple of their projects were presented to us. One development that stood out to me was the renovation the studio did for “Eden”, the Charleroi cultural centre. I find the choice to leave the internal walls as is, to be a wonderful choice, delivering instantaneous character to the centre’s visitors.
In the afternoon, we met a representative of the Charleroi Bouwmeester (master builder), who explained the departments’ vision for renewing the city. It was interesting to see that the plans outlined were focused both on the economic development of the city and the green infrastructure of the region. The Charleroi Bouwmeester focused a lot on green spaces within the city and improving the bike infrastructure. The most impressive project, for me, was the Charleroi aerospace centre, which is supposed to provide high-skilled jobs to the region. Personally, I found that the creation of jobs should have been even more of a focus, to attract more people to the city; however, that might be because of my background.
To move onto lighter topics, we also visited the Charleroi police station, a blue tower designed by Jean Nouvel. After seeing this building, I am convinced that Nouvel despises the police. The phallic monument towers ominously over the neighbourhood, its base isolated from the surrounding buildings by an empty brick plaza.
We concluded our visit by passing through the UCharleroi campus’ newly renovated Zenobe Gramme Building, which was excellently renovated. Excited students paced towards their first classes of the year along brilliant white statues lining the halls.
I want to express my heartfelt thank you to the two people who organised this outing: Lucien Kahane and Johan Puel. Everybody of the team who I spoke to, truly enjoyed the day. The pace of the organisation was great, and the variation between the activities was a lot of fun!
So, thank you very much to Lucien and Johan!
-Alexander Lambrecht (Analyst Real Estate & Territorial Development)
