Setting a Scene for Inclusion: Molenbeek in the Brussels Sports Landscape

Setting a Scene for Inclusion

Molenbeek in the Brussels Sports Landscape Miguel Vanleene

Setting a Scene for Inclusion Molenbeek in the Brussels Sports Landscape Miguel Vanleene Thesis submitted to obtain the degree European Postgraduate Masters in Urbanism [EMU] Academic year: 2010-2011 Promotor: Prof. Bruno De Meulder Urbanisms & Inclusions 1: Sint-Jans-Molenbeek/Brussels

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Faculty of Engineering Department of Architecture, Urbanism and Planning [ASRO]

Permission for Use of Content: The author herewith permits that the present dissertation be made available for consultation; parts of it may be copied, strictly for personal use. Every other use is subject to strict copyright reservations. Particular reference is made to the obligation of explicitly mentioning the source when quoting the present dissertation’s results.

Leuven, 2011 2

Acknowledgements. I would like to thank my

promotor, Bruno De Meulder, part-time senior lecturer and programme director of the Master of Urbanism and Spatial Planning and the Master of Human Settlements at the KULeuven, whose knowledge, patience and advice have been indispensable for the realization of this thesis.

My gratitude goes out to Els Vervloesem and Maarten Loopmans for reading and evaluating this work. And special thanks to Brian McGrath, Associate Professor of Urban Design and Miodrag Mitrasinovic, Associate Professor of Design Studies at Parsons The New School of Design, New York City, for their valuable feedback and for hosting the Urbanisms of Inclusion workshop as part of the Atlantis exchange programme.

I would also like to thank Bart Vanreusel, senior lecturer at Faculty of Kinesiology and Rehabilitation Sciences, KULeuen for his advice and insight on the subject of sports and integration; the staff of vzw Buurtsport Brussel and planning department of the municipality of Sint-JansMolenbeek for their cooperation.

I’m greatly indebted to my colleagues and co-students from the Inclusive Urbanism Studio: Ben, Barbara, Rana, Payam, Evelyne, Verena, Sven and Esther for all their help, feedback and support throughout the whole process.

And finally I want to thank my friends and family for their unconditional support, help and care, without them this wouldn’t have been possible.

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CONTENTS

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ENTRYPOINT Theoretical essay

BRUSSELS/SINT-JANS-MOLENBEEK Contextualising the entrypoint in Brussels

Body cultures energizing the city: sports as a medium for integration.

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RWDM in the Brussels sports landscape.

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DESIGN PROJECT Design proposal in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek Scenes of Exposure.

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5

Body cultures energizing the city: sports as a medium for integration.

Theoretical essay

Introduction Defining culture

sports

and

Sports as a social tool Body cultures and space Conclusion

body

Introduction. Taking sports as an entry point to frame

this urbanisms & inclusions design research might not seem like an obvious choice to many. Partly because, within the fields of architecture and urbanism, sports are often either reduced to an almost banal programmatic aspect or only become the subject of debate in discussions about the monumental pieces of infrastructure as nations continue to compete to attract mega-events like for example the FIFA World Cup Soccer or the Olympics.

But urban design projects where sports play a central role are a lot scarcer or don’t have such a high profile to say the least. Which is somehow strange since sports is and continues to be one of the most popular leisure activities amongst youngsters, regardless of their ethnic background. However there have been an increasing amount of projects in the past decades that explore the potential of sports as an agency of change, together with the evolving paradigms on body cultures within the social sciences, exemplified by numerous organisations that apply sports as a social tool. Also having done a previous thesis on the potential of soccer fields as spatial frames of social integration and development in the fabric of everyday space of disadvantaged neighbourhoods in South Africa, making use of the positive momentum created by the staging of FIFA Soccer World Cup event there in 2010 (Vanleene & Van Troy, 2009), has influenced me to explore the agency of sports further in the context of the young migrant neighbourhoods of western Brussels.

Image: a soccer project in the Chicago neighbourhood in Brussels, D’Broej, Brussels Organisation for the Emancipation of Youth. (source: Brusselnieuws.be, February 2010) 7

Defining sport and body culture. Before further

exploring the potential of sports as a medium for integration it is important to define the main characteristics of sport, to avoid reducing it to a banal concept. Everyone ‘knows’ or at least has an assumption about what sport is, but giving a clear definition is not so easy, since it is a continuously evolving term and different schools of researchers follow different paradigms. Dutch sport sociologist Agnes Elling defines sport as a combination of characteristics of which the most important ones are ‘game-characteristics’ (a game as a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles – Suits 1988 quoted in Elling 2004), specific regulatory, learning and improving of (movement) skills and a certain level of institutionalisation. She states that depending on which aspects you focus, sports can be seen as both a mirror and antitype of society as a whole, in which self-realisation and democratisation continuously go hand in hand with forms of exploitation, commercialisation and distinction. (Elling 2004) While acknowledging this valuable definition, indeed touching upon some very interesting characteristics, it becomes even more interesting if we put this definition in comparison to the ideas of another school.

Cultural sociologist Henning Eichberg introduced the term ‘body culture’ in social sciences, which places sports in the context of culture, looking at the body as socially constructed and historically variable (Eichberg 1998). In his studies on ‘body culture’ or ‘movement culture’ his starting point is the recognition of the numerous different configurations of the human body instead of a vulgar interpretation of sport. This resulted in a very 8

interesting ‘trialectic’ approach in the Danish movement, avoiding the use of dominant dualisms as sports-leisure, but instead talking about achievement sport, fitness sport and body experience, illustrated by the figure on the right.

Achievement sport, not unlike modern-day society in general is based on the production of results; it continues to be the dominant form of body culture with the Olympic idea, now reduced to ‘faster-higher-stronger’, as the most well-known one. The second model, fitness sport (or sport for all) also appeared during modernisation of games alongside achievement sport. Here bodily movement is instrumental and functionalised: with a focus on health and hygiene, pedagogical adjustment and social integration.

(Eichberg 1998) The acknowledgement of the third model is an interesting broadening of the concept of sport, finding their expression in older forms of popular sports and traditional games, as well as in dance and in ‘new waves’ of body culture, often with foreign influences. But these categories are not absolute, as the real phenomena are always a combination of these categories .

Of course the aim is not to do a research on the various approaches of studies on sports, but these different, well-grounded and apparently not necessarily incompatible ideas from important researchers in the field of social sciences and sports help to create a theoretical frame upon which a research by design on sports as a medium of integration can be developed that is not limited to the sometimes narrow vision of one designer on this subject.

Sports as a social tool. Having identified a number

of (often state funded) organisations during fieldwork, involved in urban youth or with integration of mainly ethnic minorities in Brussels in general, it was striking to see that they all to various extents used sports to try to reach their objectives. There is a clear parallel between the characteristics of Eichberg’s second model of body culture, fitness sport or sport for all, where bodily movement is used as a functional pedagogic tool and the aims of these organisations, but also policies and researcher today to use sports as a means to integrate people in society. The next paragraph tries to shed light on which aspects make sports such a popular tool and to evaluate its actual potential. The first aim of these organisations, like for example vzw Buurtsport Brussel or BIS-Foyer, both active in Brussels, is always to make people practice sports in the sense of improving physical and mental fitness of the people doing a fun activity. It is a great way to both physically and mentally get away from everything for a short time and replenishing your energy.

The preventive and curative influence of sports has been generally accepted and scientifically proven, as well as the paradoxical fact that the current level of physical fitness of the Belgian population in general is alarmingly low (Beunen 2001).

Image: a ‘trialectic’ of sports illustrated with running (source: Eichberg, H., Bale, J. & Philo, C. (eds.), Body cultures, essays on sport, space and identity, Routledge, London, 1998)

In contrast to the empirical evidence of the positive influence of practicing sports on health, thorough research on the power of sports to act as a binding element between people from different backgrounds resulting in social integration is lacking, as it is also very difficult to measure in a quantifiable way. Linguistic communication is 9

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primordial for participation in most sectors of society, while normally people can go jogging or play soccer together without speaking each other’s language, thus lowering the threshold greatly. In this sense Elling recognises the binding potency of practicing sports together on a regular basis, but she also criticises the policies that too easily pinpoint sports, from a functional perspective, as a social arena “where integration occurs more or less spontaneously” (policy from Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports, 1996 in Elling 2004). Within sportsfor-all idea, also very much present in Belgian policies, the approach of introducing more neighbourhood sports activities focuses on old deprived neighbourhoods in big cities with little sport opportunities, usually inhabited by a population of ethnic minorities, as is the case in Sint-JansMolenbeek. These policies are usually part of a bigger plan of social and urban renewal in these neighbourhoods and don’t come forth from promotion of ethnic specific sports organisations. But although sports can indeed help improve liveability in historically disadvantaged parts of the city (Vanreusel, 2006) and these policies and organisations do valuable efforts in making more inclusive and recreational sports practices, and the countering of exclusion within traditional competitive sport, Elling states that it probably shouldn’t try to direct social binding too much.

Image: Vertical Gym project in Caracas, Venezuela, Urban Think Tank (competition hosted by Architecture for Humanity), 2004 (source: www. detail.de)

Focusing on disadvantaged neighbourhoods often inhabited by a high number of migrants, Moroccans in the case of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, ethnically ‘mixed’ sporting is being promoted top-down as an instrument for integration. And while ethnically mixed sporting doesn’t automatically mean the creating of ethnically mixed relations and intercultural exchanges, it does increase the possibilities for this. Sports shouldn’t be seen as a miracle medicine, people mainly sport for the fun of it, not to integrate themselves and effects of integration are rather secondary (De Knop ea 2006; Vanreusel, 2006), but creating the opportunities for this to happen are therefore not less important. This in itself has proven to be not so evident, since fieldwork showed that even when provided with the possibility to participate in sports activities, the organisations often still have difficulties to reach and keep their target groups, mostly migrant youth. There is a particularly high dropout rate of the Moroccan teenagers, especially girls, and the adult women are in general hard to reach in the first place (De Knop & Theeboom, 1999).

When their immediate social environment, like the family, is also involved in the body cultural activities dropout rates are significantly lower. But even passive support is sometimes not enough, as a lot of the traditional sports clubs depend on volunteers, often parents, getting actively involved to keep to club going. This however is often not so evident for migrant families because of various structural and socio-cultural obstacles. Not only do lower social classes tend to choose for cheaper sports, all too often it is one of the first things to fall out of the family budget. Also car ownership is often required for membership of a club, since (larger) sports clubs are 11

often pushed to the edge of the city and clubs also often rely on parents to bring children to games, as regional competitions can take them to places isolated from public transport. Related to this is the fact that the hours of the club sometimes coincide with the inflexible working hours of this social class. Obstacles can also be of a sociocultural kind, where a flexible perception of sports of migrant youth doesn’t correspond with the local structures (De Knop ea 2006). For the Muslim migrants it is often not acceptable for Muslim girls and women to practice sports in the presence of men. Also the wearing of a headscarf and only being allowed to sport during daylight are just a few of possible issues that can arise. But this doesn’t mean that there is no demand from the migrant women or migrant community in general for opportunities to express their identity, not in the least on the level of body culture.

Illustrated by a study done on the integrative effects of ‘ethnic sport’ among Turkish migrants in West Germany, in which Eichberg criticizes the positivist research that 12

focus on methods of measurement often solely based on participation statistics to quantify the level of integration, without investigating body cultural traditions, sport and games of these migrants. Although researchers have been recommending adapted programmes for (organised) sports for underprivileged youth for over a decade now (De Knop & Theeboom, 1999).

Still fieldwork in Brussels suggests a similar approach by organisations and the government as the one used in Germany. This positivist sociology of sports tends to neglect various forms of Islamic body culture, characterised by its prayers, hygiene and taboos (Eichberg 1998.) Put in this perspective the popularity of swimming pools for example and the increasing demand for the possibility of gender-separated swimming from migrant women can be understood as the search for a space similar to the hammams in the Muslim world.

Also the popularity of dance lessons is becoming more

and continues to do so. Also in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek it is the number one sportive pastime of young men, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. Not only is soccer also big in Morocco, the game continues to be a cheap lowthreshold sport activity, and can be easily adapted to any situation, (urban) space and number of players.

and more apparent both with migrant as ‘local’ people, illustrating the third model of Eichberg’s trialectic approach, of body experience and social sensuality. For young men, but also women to a lesser extent, martial arts have proven to be an appealing form of body culture and often successfully used by organisation focussing on disadvantaged youth as their target group, resulting in a large amount of martial arts groups looking for a practice space. It should be clear that martial arts shouldn’t be considered as being about aggression, but it is maybe the most straightforward example of sports as a way to unload tension. Martial art classes are characterised by hard training and discipline, teaching them not only movement skills, but also improves personal and social development. The more ‘common’ sports however shouldn’t be overlooked either: soccer has played a very important role to attract people, both young and old to become involved in initiatives for disadvantaged youth in the past two decades (Theeboom 2007) all over the world

It is safe to say that sports do indeed have the potential to improve liveability and to facilitate integration in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, but it doesn’t guarantee this, on the contrary. First it is no miracle medicine and therefore applying it in an instrumental functionalist manner to achieve social binding probably won’t lead to the expected results. Second, placing sports in the context of culture and looking at body cultures leads to critical insights, avoids vulgarisation by broadening the perspective and reinforces its potential. Thirdly, sport is not only a fun way to re-energize both physically and mentally, but can also ameliorate personal and social development through the learning of (movement) skills. In short sports has the potential to be a cultural platform of meaningful bodily movement activities where integration can take place in an inclusive environment for all and through which the city can be energized.

Image left: municipal pool in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, April 2011 (source: Vanleene M.) Image middle: re-opening Bonnevie Park, Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, May 2011 (source: Buurthuis Bonnevie, www.bonnevie40.be) Image right: small arena of a ‘panna’ street soccer tournament in Oostend, 2008 (www.streetgames.be) 13

Body cultures and space. The conclusion above

already states that the potential of sports as a medium of integration doesn’t lie in its instrumentality. The term ‘medium’ should consequently also be seen as ‘the intervening substance’ that acts as a carrier or even more as ‘the environment’ in which something can exist. This implicates a strong spatial aspect to the idea, which will be discussed in the following paragraph. Since the wave of industrialisation exercises of the body have been pursued mainly in separated environments (Eichberg 1998). This had not always been the case, and also today we see an increasing amount of people sporting in public spaces like parks, squares, woods… (Elling 2004) Not in the least by the increasing popularity of sports like walking, cycling and jogging (Wittock ea 2009), so called ‘light’ sports communities, a gathering of people to practice sports (together) that doesn’t involve membership. To better understand how the space surrounding the moving 14

bodies in sports is formed, the main trends in the historical evolution of the space for body culture in European cities will be overviewed here, largely based on a critical reading of Eichberg’s essay on ‘the enclosure of the body’.

The origins of the first forms of physical exercise in the Middle Ages and early modern period can be traced back to games and exercises taking place in the open air. These activities comprised mainly of throw contests and archery, skiing and skating, running, swimming and wrestling. There even already existed forms of ballgames where whole villages battled it out against each other. The space for this body culture actually comprised potentially all open-air space: the street between villages, open areas on the outskirts of town, but also the streets and squares in the cities would be seen as space for sports, even building walls or church portals where used for these games (Eichberg 1998); areas that could be mainly

defined as either public spaces or commons. Parish fairs or festivals would provide excellent opportunities for these open-air games.

In the 15th and 16th century the feudal nobility started to replace the open-air games by a courtly exercise culture that was practiced indoors. This shift from openair to an enclosed environment that characterised this body culture is the more significant because it involved three processes of exclusion: spatial separation, social division by rank or class and exclusion of children (Ariès 1976 in Eichberg 1998). The embodiment of this enclosed space for the body culture of the elite of the 17th and 18th century was the covered hall, used for fencing, vaulting, horse riding, ballet, gymnastics and early versions of tennis. The courts were enclosed with walls, but since the first examples appeared without roof structure, suggest that protection from the elements was not the main objective. However this enveloped space was not only an

Image far left: mob football at festive times in medieval Europe (source: Dunmore T., Laws of the Game, Before There Were Rules, July 2009, pitchinvasion.net) Image left: court tennis played on an enclosed, but roofless court, ca.

1500 (source: Gitting, P., A short history of tennis: Henry VIII to Federer the great, April 2010, edition.cnn.com) Image right: gymnasium in Sevelen, Switserland, 1932 (source: www. mr-sevelen.ch) Image far right: students participating in a Regatta in NeumĂźnster, 1959 (source: Ellgaard, H., wikipedia)

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architectural demarcation of exclusivity, it was also often part of the game configuration itself, with its surfaces as playing-areas, not unlike present-day squash. Another important feature of these courts was the incorporation of galleries in the structure for academics or patrician spectators (Eichberg 1998), which illustrates another important feature of body culture in general as a game of “to see and to be seen” and more “hidden” practice.

In the beginning of the 19th century gymnastics started to take to the open air again and this announced the start of a green revolution in European body culture taking sports into the open country. The covered halls became deserted and were destroyed or transformed into hospitals, theatres, barracks, etc. and apart from sports practiced in the open like running, rowing and cycling also the first seaside resorts and river-based swimming pools were constructed. But this first green wave soon came to an end and a new type of building for physical exercise arose: the club gymnasium with specialised equipment. New health and hygiene paradigms forced sports back indoors with apart from the indoor gymnasia also new types of bathhouses emerged, identified by Eichberg as forerunners of the indoor swimming pools with their division of sex and class.

By the end of the 19th century a second green wave started as a reaction to all of this, as newly-formed workers’ youth organisations moved again ‘out into the open’. Also gymnastics took to the open air again and the emergence of a ‘popular gymnastics’ of track and field exercises appeared next to a games movement that adopted old ball games, also influenced by English ‘grass sports’. A parallel shift could also be seen from indoor 16

to outdoor swimming and with this shift also the image of the socially desirable body changed from bourgeoisie white skin to tanned skin and sporty appearance (Eichberg 1998). This second green wave, corresponding to trends as the garden city movement, quite quickly came to an end in the early 20th century, characterised by the transformation of open sport fields into concrete stadiums, the revival of the indoor gym in the form of sport and recreation centres, the flight of sport monocultures to the countryside complete with their specific fields and halls, and the introduction of public swimming pools.

Eichberg then defines three contrasting trends that dominate body culture in the 20th century, also addressed by various other researchers in their writings and to a large extent explain the existing sports landscape in Europe today. The first trend is what you could see as the incarcerating of physical exercise, or what Vanreusel characterised as ‘fence-thinking’ (Vanreusel 2006), illustrated by windowless, air-conditioned and artificially lit sport halls in school and municipalities and in the commercial sector by the rapidly increasing number of fitness centres. Directly linked to this is the abundance of road infrastructure constructed to reach these sports centres by car, the increasingly artificial character of the surfaces of sports fields, athletics tracks and even children’s playgrounds. Examples of this trend in the context of Brussels and Sint-Jans-Molenbeek are abundant.

In the second trend, in contrast to the first, we again see a return to the open-air movement, with the currently very popular ‘light’ sports communities (cfr. supra) with

running, jogging, but also skiing and adventure holidays as examples. But while sports like running and jogging or even skateboarding can make use of the open public spaces in the cities, the other two require to go to the ‘great outdoors’ demanding additional infrastructure and colonise the open space even further. However even the joggers and skaters have trouble finding an adequate space in the car-dominated streets, forcing them to go to the edge of the city or even the countryside, or being confined to a few particular spots.

A last trend, started in the 1960’s is exemplified by the extremely popular classes of yoga and t’ai chi that are sprouting up everywhere, both in the cities as in the villages, mainly in westernised cities, but it is a trend that seems to ride the wave of globalisation. These combinations of meditational forms of exercise from East Asia, health-educational techniques and bio-energetic body dynamics, appeal in the first place to middleaged women, but certainly not exclusively, as also the alternative youth scene and more recently people in high (management) functions have tapped into this trend.

Eichberg states that the spaces used for this ‘new’ form of body culture are not colonizing the open spaces nor does it require its reconstruction as the fitness centres, “that their space is the space available in the complexity of daily life”. But now this trend is being commercially exploited and reduced to a mere consumption good (Vanreusel 2006) that also starts to be immured in artificial facilities.

Image: closed gate of fenced petanque club in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, April 2011 (source: Vanleene M.) 17

Conclusion. The traditional games of before have

undergone a process of modernisation described by Eichberg, in which they have been either banished to the realm of folklore, or undergone a process of pedagogisation, where they have been applied in a functionalist way as described earlier. Or they have been ‘sportised’, also changing their space and time configurations. It space has become increasingly standardised, specialised and segregated from the realm of everyday life by material barriers as illustrated above. The timing has evolved from the rhythm of the festivals and fairs to the plain work/leisure rhythm of today. But, as already hinted by some of the examples above, it is clear that this modern sports landscape is in being questioned today. The popularity of light sports communities overtaking the car dominated streets once more, illustrated for example by the huge number of participants and spectators that urban running and street soccer events draw; the reintroduction of musical aspects and (re)discovering of traditional, exotic and new games and dances; and although achievement sport is still dominant, a shift can be seen towards a new emphasis on fun and bodily experience.

Building on this research, this thesis will further explore the 21st century space for sports from the perspective of its potential to be a cultural platform of meaningful bodily movement activities where integration can take place in an inclusive environment for all and through which the city can be energized.

Image: “20 km door Brussel” yearly running event, May 2005 (source: 20km.chronorace.be) 18

References BERNARD, N., ZIMMER, P., SURKIN, J., Citizens’ Forum of Brussels. Housing, control over land use and public space, in: Brussel Studies Synopsis nr. 6, January 19th, 2009

ELLING, A., Sport als sociale arena – In- en uitsluiting in de sport naar sekse en etniciteit, Publicatiefonds voor Lichamelijke Opvoeding vzw, 2004

BEUNEN, G., e.a. (eds.), Fysieke activiteit, Fitheid & Gezondheid, Vlaams Tijdschrift voor Sportgeneeskunde en Sportwetenschappen, speciale uitgave, 2001

STEENS, G. (ed.), Moet er nog sport zijn? Sport, beweging en gezondheid in Vlaanderen 2002-2006 Volume 1, F&G Partners, Antwerpen, 2006

BISS, L., One Love, lannoo, Tielt, 2006

THEEBOOM, M., Sports initiatives for socially deprived youth in Flanders (Belgium): the impact of Euro 2000 on the ‘Neighbourhood Sports Project of Mechelen’, Department of Sport Policy and Management, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 2007

BORDEN, I., Skateboarding, Space and the City – Architecture and the Body, Berg, Oxford, 2003 DE KNOP, P., SCHEERDER, J., VANREUSEL, B. (eds.), Sportsociologie: Het spel en de spelers, Elsevier Gezondheidszorg, Maarssen, 2006 DE KNOP, P., THEEBOOM, M., “Sports stimulation initiatives for underprivileged youth in Flanders (Belgium)” in Journal of Education and Training 20, No. 1, 1999, pp.

4-48 DE MEULDER, B., “Molenbeek, or what became of the welfare state. La Rue, La Fonderie and La Poudrière, labs and credos in the city of industry and squalor.” in Archis, No. 4, 1996, pp. 30-37

VAN REUSEL, B., Sport herbergen – over ruimte en sport, presentation for the VSG congres, Herenveen (The Netherlands), September 20th 2006 WIELDRAAIJER, E., VAN DEN BRINK, C., STEVENS, T.,Hinderlijk buitenspel – Sport als motor van integratie, daM uitgeverij, Deventer, 2006 WITTOCK, H., e.a. (eds.), Sport Verruimd, 5 Jaar Vlaams Sportbeleid (2004-2009), Departement van Cultuur, Jeugd, Sport en Media, Brussel, 2009

EICHEBERG, H., BALE, J. & PHILO, C. (eds.), Body cultures, essays on sport, space and identity, Routledge, London, 1998

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RWDM in the Brussels sports landscape.

Contextualising the entrypoint

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compact city of Brussels, 1934

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Sint-Jans-Molenbeek has a rich sports history. A former Belgian first division team RWDM, Racing White Daring Molenbeek, is located here, now only their youth is still top of Belgium. During the interwar period one can see a concentration of large sports facilities (mainly football stadiums and velodromes for cycling) near the working class neighbourhoods along the canal and on the edge of the compact city. A lot of those facilities are now gone or have become isolated islands in the city’s expansion.

The stadium of former RWDM in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek is still one of 3 large sports venues in Brussels today, but

although the current club, FC Brussels, identifies itself with the city, it has lost most of its glorious image.

Image top left and p. 21: Oscar Bossaert stadium, the first football stadium on this location with a grandstand, athletics tracks, a hockey field, tennis fields and a solarium (source: www.rwdm-fcbrussels.be) Image top right: stadium at the time of RWDM club fusion: a new heated tribune was added and it was renamed to Edmond Machtens stadium. (source: www.rwdm-fcbrussels.be) Image bottom: current condition of Edmond Machtens stadium occupied

by FC Brussels: open space around the stadium is enclosed by new appartment blocks. (source: Vanleene M., March 2011) 23

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2. Edmond Machtens Stadium

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3. Constant Vanden Stock Stadium

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Image left: current situation of large sports infrastructures in the cardominated city of Brussels, all velodromes are destroyed or transformed and the 3 football stadiums have been “upgraded” and isolated.

Image top right: schematic representation of the location of the RWDM stadium and Karreveld velodrome just outside the working class neighbourhoods of the compact city, topographically embedded in the open rural hinterland of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek.

Image middle right: suburban expansion of Brussels and the appearance of various housing projects from modernist tower blocks to garden city neighbourhoods. The ‘green’ suburban environment would guarantee the people’s health and space for sports is reduced to a few specific facilities like the upgraded sports stadium, the tennis club and a communal swimming pool.

Image bottom right: current trend of space consumation in which the increasingly scarce open spaces are being occupied by new and expensive appartment blocks and housing projects. The space around the stadium is being built up, isolating the enclosed facility even more.

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image left: (dis)connections between the different actors of FC Brussels football club; and sports events used as an attractor by social organisations to lower the threshold of sports clubs

Although the sports club is definitely not the sole place for sports, as made clear earlier, it is still occupies a very important place in the sports landscape, also in Brussels. Apart from the expertise, specialized equipment and the required facilities for certain sports, sports clubs also organise sports activities on a regular basis.

Especially this last aspect is significant as the regularity of participating in the activities increases the chance for a positive social influence (De Knop & Theeboom, 1999).

The functioning of sport clubs, exemplified in this case by the particular case of former RWDM, now FC Brussels, depends on many actors. Since they cannot survive on the revenues of memberships and fans alone, the club has a considerable amount of private sponsors that pay for advertisement in the facilities, on the website and on the equipment. Through various policies and programmes also both the regional and federal governments are financially supporting many sports clubs. For clubs as large as FC Brussels this is often indirectly through specific constructions that focus on sports for disadvantaged youth in the context of the “sports for all” policy and the King Baudouin Foundation. But although FC Brussels claim to have one of the best youth football academies in the country statistics show that underprivileged youth doesn’t often find its way to this kind of organised sports activities. This is not only due to the structural and sociocultural obstacles discussed in the essay earlier, but also because of the often limited extent the club wishes to invest in these social community programmes.

In the club’s heydays there was a lot of community involvement linked to a strong fan-culture with an attractive offer of side activities as a fanfare and a renowned majorettes team. The FC Brussels fan club and fanfare can still be found in café Au Bon Coin near the stadium, but the other club-related side activities seem to have disappeared here. The fans of FC Brussels see themselves not surprisingly as the real ‘Brusseleirs’, in opposed to the first division club of RSC Anderlecht nearby. Consisting of mostly older ‘autochthonous’ inhabitants of Brussels and with a remarkably low amount of new young supporters illustrating the increasingly weak links with the community.

More recently we can see a modest revival of these side activity practices, like for example the majorettes team of the Marollen neighbourhood that coloured some events in Brussels with their performances. Although some sports clubs have their own American-style cheerleader team, this kind of dance and musical side activities are usually found in the increasingly popular (sport) events that take place in the city’s public realm. This form of body cultural activities in event format is more accessible for disadvantaged youth because they involve no ‘formal’ membership and take place in public space, lowering the threshold greatly. This characteristic is effectively used by the sports programmes of organisations, like BIS-Foyer, YES and Buurtsport Brussel to let people get in touch with their network. But because of the temporal character of the event the organisations try to get the participants involved in affiliated clubs that organise activities more regularly. This creates an interesting complementarity between the sports clubs and events, which should be explored further in the future.

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agglomeration compact city large outdoor sports fields small outdoor sports fields indoor sports facilities indoor swimming pools skate parks

Image top left: distribution of large and small outdoor sports fields in the Brussels region Image top right: distribution of indoor spaces for sports in the Brussels region Image bottom left: distribution of swimming pools in the Brussels region Image bottom right: distribution of skate parks in the Brussels region

Looking at the distribution of 4 different kinds of sports facilities in Brussels today we can see that larger outdoor sports terrains are ‘pushed’ more to the edge of the Brussels’ agglomeration, while you’ll find some smaller ones closer to the dense city centre. This negatively affects the accessibility of the larger sports terrains for people living in the centre that don’t own a car.

Indoor sports facilities are more present in the city centre, often in the form of fitness centres and martial arts clubs (especially popular in migrant neighbourhoods). More outside the centre they become scarcer and often the only facilities present are municipal and school sports halls, which are all too often still windowless white boxes.

Swimming is becoming increasingly popular, also amongst migrant girls and women, a difficult target group to reach in general. It is said that 40% of people sporting in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek swim. But most of the swimming pools are located east of the canal or at the edge of the city in the higher income neighbourhoods, making the few swimming facilities in the valley (over)crowded especially in summer, sometimes even resulting in small conflicts between youngsters in and around Brussels.

Although skateboarding has become an important urban sport worldwide, the sport is not always welcomed, on the contrary. The possibilities to practice this sport in Brussels are slim as it is, but the creative skaters are often still chased away from public spaces by police or through deliberately chosen anti-skating materials and the provided infrastructure, as the one located in the MarieJosé park in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, is often very limiting and in poor condition 29

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high income neighbourhood low income neighbourhood

Image left: representing the spatial sports network of Buurtsport Brussel, based on their activities; focusing on disadvantaged neighbourhoods on the one hand and on the other their limited access to the larger sports facilities in the higher income neighbourhoods.

Image next page: open space map of western Brussels showing how Sint-Jans-Molenbeek has the shortest distance between the compact city and its suburban edge, creating a variety of different spaces in close proximity of each other and connecting the dense city centre to important (green) open spaces.

The differences between the facilities of the higher income neighbourhoods and lower income neighbourhoods in the valley are apparent. Here, the few organisations trying to use sports as a means for integration, like vzw Buurtsport Brussel, have an extensive network in the existing sports landscape of the city to reach a larger number of people and to compensate for the lack of infrastructure nearby. But it has proven difficult to get people and youth to travel certain distances and to leave their own neighbourhood to go and practice sports. Also accessibility of the larger facilities for more space consuming sports in the higher income and more suburban neighbourhoods is often only limited or nonexisting for these people and organisations. This form of spatial segregation can also be found in Sint-JansMolenbeek. Even though the distance between the dense urban tissue of the post-industrial neighbourhoods near the city centre and the suburban edge of Brussels is at its shortest here, the railroad acts as a border between them and apparently this is a difficult barrier to cross for the sports networks. The lack of possibilities for sports in the dense neighbourhoods near the canal is linked to the scarcity of adequate and accessible space for body cultural activities, a number of small martial arts clubs and a few mini-soccer fields cannot compensate for the shortage of public space that can accommodate the practice of different body cultures.

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parts of the city and with towers sprouting along the east half of the pentagon. The canal and industrial compounds mark the lower west part of the pentagon. However, with the current decrease of industrial activities of the Brussels harbour, opportunities arise, as is well understood by Brussels Region, marking this area for future development, illustrated in various planning documents and architecture and urban design competitions. But most of these plans don’t go further then the ‘closing’ the ring and having similar (tower) development here as in the east, while this opportunity could be used to provide the much needed public space in the dense lower city, making room for various activities like leisure and sports.

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Image top: infrastructure platforms in the valley folds Image page left: sports clusters and open spaces along infrastructure lines

With a considerable population growth expected in the coming decades the consolidation of public open spaces in the city becomes increasingly important.

Historically Brussels has primarily developed towards the east, with the inner ring providing car access to these

Analysing the existing sports landscape of west Brussels more closely, interestingly clusters of sports infrastructure can be recognised along infrastructure platforms running parallel with the valley. These platforms are located in the topographical folds of the landscape, but also transform them: former industrial land along the canal and the space in the city centre left by the old harbour, both in the lowest parts of the valley; the terrain vagues along the railway lines at the foot of the valley slope; the larger sports facilities and important green open spaces along the Mettewie avenue. And the final two platforms are the ones created by the mostly underground railway line through the east part of the centre of Brussels with a boulevard on top and the Rue Royal connection the cities largest institutions and giving further access to the eastern expansion. Considering the consolidation of the urban tissue along these busy traffic axes in the east, focus will lie further on the four ‘slower’ strips in the west.

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Scenes of exposure Desing proposal in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek

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The eastern expansion of Brussels is complemented with strips of open space for body cultural activities in the valley in the west as scenes of exposure; as stages to be watched or go and watch others. In contrast to the east-west lines of busy car traffic giving access to the jobs in the east, these north-south platforms can become destination spaces, where a different, slower speed is adopted.

By emphasizing the valley folds through topographical interventions in the existing sports landscape its threshold is lowered and terrains vagues are claimed for body cultural activities. The scarce open spaces in the growing city are thus acknowledged as such, preserved and (re)integrated in the urban tissue. The idea of sports not as an instrument for integration, but as a cultural platform in the landscape on which through meaningful bodily activities in an inclusive environment, integration can take place.

Five different scenes are chosen because of their contextual topographical characteristics, the sort of platform, the presence of existing sports facilities and the availability of open space (both terrain vagues and existing public spaces).

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Water strip & Cobblestone carpet

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Water strip

sections AA’

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A’ A

B’ sections showing existing situation and proposed section of Ninoofse Poort and Brussels harbor.

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sections BB’

The first scene is the water strip created along part of the canal.

By restoring the connection to the water on different places and in different ways, different relations and (sportive) uses of the canal become possible. The open space of the Ninoofse Poort is slowly folded down like a green blanket under a new slender double bridge to create space for an outdoor swimming pool on the same level as the canal. Traffic along the quays that make out the west side of the pentagon is further reduced to make room for safe bike routes along the water. The banks north of the Leopold II avenue are broader and allow to be transformed into sloping banks and sitting steps going down to the water, making the canal accessible for various sports.

Further north the excess width of the canal allows for a platform to be placed in the water in front of a newly created beach that would function as an outdoor water recreation park.

This would also give a new impulse to events like Brussel Bad, where the atmosphere of a beach is recreated on the quays and in general would reclaim the water as a public space for sports.

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Cobblestone carpet

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C C’ D’ D

images left: sections showing existing situation and proposed section of the Willebroeck quay and Steenkool-kaai. image bottom: sketch of cobblestone strip, spaces for sports and events

The second scene is the old harbour strip closest to the city centre at the valley bottom. Here, the material that characterises this space in the dense urban tissue is extended to the north along the old canal trajectory creating a continuous cobblestone carpet as an alternative and slow way to enter the city. Parts of the carpet are folded up or down to create arenas for body cultural encounters. In certain areas the density of the cobblestone would be decreased to allow for urban green to sprout ensuring continuity between existing green spaces.

Larger open spaces allow for events to take place on the carpet; folds could accommodate social organisations close to their activity spaces and provide interesting vantage points; and strips of slightly lowered terrain collect rainwater to make temporary ponds allowing for slow infiltration and change peoples trajectories over the carpet invoking different encounters.

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Railway threshold

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sections EE’

sections showing existing situation and proposed section of the Sippelberg sports facilities and the Beekkant subway station.

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The railway sports scene extends from the Sippelberg sports facilities and the buildings of the UCL sports academy in the north to the renewed west station in the south.

The railway is transformed from a barrier to a threshold of the city; not only through the new west station, but also by making the green finger of “suburban” and open spaces touch the dense tissue of the inner city.

The landscape is used to mediate between the hard engineering of the railway and the soft topographical differences of the valley’s slope that starts here, creating both new platforms for sports and making the existing Sippelberg Stadium more accessible, also the problematic ground level of the housing towers along the railway is rethought. The green character of the terrains

vagues is maintained and made publicly accessible and fit for sports; and the concrete rooftops of the bus- and train depot are claimed for hard surface sports activities, like skating and basketball. The existing creek is uncovered again and acts as a green spine that makes the green character of the suburban west touch the dense urban tissue.

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Peterbos terraces

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The fourth strip stretches from the Peterbos Park social housing project, located on the higher grounds of a small ridge to the Constant van den Stock Stadium of RSC Anderlecht, in a lower part of the valley. This strip is characterised by terraces, both the park of the stadium as the social housing project is terraced. The terraces in Peterbos Park however give a limited added value to the project since the level differences are barely used. As in many of these

high-rise social housing projects the way these towers and slabs stand on the ground is often problematic.

By rethinking and extending the terraced system, letting the ground and first floors of the buildings reconnect with the public spaces outside and freeing the terraces up from cars to make room for sports and other activities, creating meaningful spaces. The indoor spaces could be used for example for collective classes of yoga and martial arts, potentially attracting

different people from Peterbos and the surrounding park city neighbourhoods, potentially creating economic and social opportunities.

Bike routes would penetrate the housing project, leading people through this interesting landscape, with incredible views on the rural Scheutbos park and on the city, towards important destinations in the neighbourhood, be it the RSC Anderlecht park or the Westland shopping mall.

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FC Brussels balcony

The football stadium of FC Brussels and the surrounding sports facilities, like the very popular municipal swimming pool, are isolated from their surroundings by a wall of new apartment blocks, as described in the second chapter. But by rethinking this island as part of a rolling open landscape dominated by a few large scale elements, like the huge apartment slabs in the west, it can become an open balcony for sports with an incredible view on 50

the city. Through the introduction of strips, whose width is determined by the large-scale structures, fold up above the existing landscape and lifting up the balconies even more. By making use of the recent plans of FC Brussels to invest in an expansion of their facilities, current and future need for space for sports can be addressed on a city scale, not limiting itself to the club’s premises.

In the lowest part of the landscape the above-mentioned creek, coming

from the large rural Scheutbos park, is emphasized and uncovered again and provides the green continuity to the railway threshold. Detached sports facilities get revitalised and opened up to the public, structures are used as part of the landscape with green accessible roofs and slopes, new facilities as well as other programmatic aspects like parking can find a place inside and on top of the folding landscape.

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sections top: existing and proposed sections through the Edmond Machtens Stadium. The landscape folds up on top of the grandstand, lifting up the practice fields and making room for underground parking. sections bottom: existing and proposed section through the municipal swmming pool.

The small sports hall is extended and opened up to the stadium, facilitating a planned club museum and space for both the gymnastics club and the Molenbeek majorette team.

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sections HH’

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Ninoofse Poort open water park.

platform between railway-side towers and Sippelberg sports club.

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FC Brussels sports balcony.

Peterbos sports terraces.

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By taking the existing contexts in the valley and the city as a starting point these five different scenes all develop in different ways. The emphasis on these contrasting landscape conditions, coexisting in close proximity in Sint-JansMolenbeek, ranging from the fields and suburban housing to the social housing towers and the dense tissue of the post-industrial neighbourhood, brings the possibility to create complementing scenes for body cultural activities. An inclusive varied sports landscape in the context of the fast growing and energetic city of Brussels.

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