Urban struggles at the Sablons

Better known for its network of antique dealers than for its revolutionary spirit, the Sablons district was nevertheless infiltrated in the early 1970s by a few whistleblowers: the founders of the ARAU, among others, projected there some great principles of the right to the city and the rehabilitation of heritage. Construction of a railway viaduct and a metro tunnel, demolition of about thirty historic houses and a military barracks, evictions of inhabitants and creation of new office zonings… such were the (extremely) heavy threats that urban struggles were able to avoid to save the district from irreversible damage! But if the Sablon has been largely spared by the process of Brusselsization, the phenomenon of “sablonization” constitutes a less glorious social facet of these fights, until today. This itinerary will therefore also offer you an immersion in more contemporary urban planning files, from the project under construction on rue Lebeau, to the demolition-reconstruction of the Jewish Museum, from the redevelopment of rue de la Régence, to the new public space of the Grand Sablon… where the removal of the open-air parking still raises questions!