Golden Sixties Heritage along the Junction

From the end of the 19th century, public authorities planned to connect the Midi Station to the North Station in order to smooth out intense rail traffic and create a station in the very heart of the city. Decided around 1904, completed in 1952, the North-Midi rail junction still constitutes to this day one of the largest construction projects Brussels has ever known. No fewer than 12,000 people were expropriated, and entire neighborhoods disappeared under the wrecking balls, causing urban trauma whose consequences are still felt today. It was on this gaping scar that the functionalist ideal of the Golden Sixties subsequently unfolded. Along this route, a new architecture was born, dictated by triumphant modernity, monofunctionalism, and the cult of "all-for-the-car". This era has left us a legacy of remarkable modernist buildings signed by big names (Yvan Blomme, Maxime Brunfaut), whose conversion raises questions today. A founding subject of ARAU, the Junction has been at the heart of our reflections since the association's beginnings. We therefore invite you to plunge back into the history of this pharaonic construction project to understand its aims, its challenges, its functionalist heritage, while revisiting the urban struggles and counter-projects that ARAU has spearheaded since the 70s in an attempt, according to our adage, to repair the city.