download as PDF - The Word Magazine

the institution
The Man
Down Under
— In the preface to
“Brüsel”, the ninth
publication of famed
Belgian comic “Les
Cités Obscures”, writers
Schuiten and Peeters
warn us: by loosing its
very essence, Brussels lost
its soul. The “essence”
they refer to is the Senne,
a 103 km long river of
which 45 km used to swirl
across Brussels’ centre
area before being covered
up and buried like a longforgotten
fi lthy old lady in
the 19th and 20th century.
The truth is, since the
completion of new sewage
treatment plants in March
2007, the old lady is
today much cleaner,
alive and fl owing. And if
you know where to meet
her, you will fi nd that
Brussels’s soul is hidden
underground.
Writer Jacques Moyersoen
40 — THE THIRD WORD
The Covering of the Senne
At the beginning of the 19 th century, Brussels,
and in particular the lower parts of town,
was in many ways still a very medieval city,
characterized not only by the course of the
Senne, but also by an illogical street layout,
hard to access islands, back alleys, narrow
streets, unregulated bridges, and numerous
dead ends. Although this may today sound
charming, it did at the time trigger its own
set of problems, and not only traffi c-wise.
The Senne had since long lost its usefulness
as a navigable waterway, being replaced by
canals. And no one ever dreamed of catching
a fi sh in the once pure clear river. In fact,
its main purpose was as a dump for garbage,
detritus and industrial waste spreading pestilential
odours throughout the city. Early
in the second half of the 19th century, Brussels
saw numerous dry periods, fl oods and
a cholera epidemic, caused as much by the
river itself as by the poverty and the lack of
hygiene and potable water in the lower city.
This forced the government to act.
In 1867, after much debate, mayor Jules
Anspach decided to cover up the Senne.
Constructed from bricks, the covering was
to be 2.2 kilometres long and was to consist
of two parallel 6 m (20 ft) wide tunnels, and
a set of two lateral drainage pipes, each taking
in wastewater from its respective side of
the street. Inspired by Haussmann’s renovation
of Paris, it served the mayor’s ambitious
plan to transform the impoverished lower
city in a more modern, business-friendly
centre. The elimination of the numerous
alleys and dead-ends in the lower town in
favour of straight, wide and open-air boulevards
– thus linking the city’s two rapidly
growing train stations - seemed both a necessity
and an opportunity to beautify the
city and improve both traffi c circulation
and hygiene. The project, which expropriated
tens of thousands of homes and took
four years to complete, created the series
of boulevards we today know as Maurice
Lemonnier Boulevard, Anspach Boulevard,
Adolphe Max Boulevard, and Emile Jacqmain
Boulevard.
The covering up was completed in 1930
when the Senne was channelled into subterranean
tunnels for nearly its entire course
through the Brussels metropolitan area.
A Smelly Promenade
Today, Brussels’ network of drains, sewers,
and drainage pipes forms an underground
maze of about 350 kilometres. It is so vast
and complex that an experienced visitor
could walk from the capital’s Central Sta-
tion to Arlon, on the country’s southernwestern
tip, without ever stepping outside.
Complete with its own underground street
sign, explorers travel through tunnels of various
shapes and structures, refl ecting years
of development: stone, brick, and then concrete.
It is a city within a city, a dank, fascinating
demimonde from which one emerges
blinking and mesmerised.
Sewers are a true museum of horrors
too. Home to the most repugnant fauna, the
drains also prove to be the ideal refuge for
rats. It is thought that two million of them
(the equivalent of two rats per habitant)
wander Brussels’ underground, eating one
third of all the fl oating waste. And they can
be big! Up to 50cm long. Small shrimps,
mussels, aquatic snails and tribes of cockroaches
are also to be found in disgusting
quantity. However, unlike in New York and
Paris nobody has yet been senseless enough
to fl ush a baby alligator down the toilet! Until
ten years ago, the sewers were also a theatre
to a strange spectacle. Every Tuesday and
Thursday the wastewater took a bloody-red
taint because it was slaughtering day at the
Anderlecht’s Cureghem abattoirs.
Exploring these mysterious paths of darkness
and insalubrities may bring excitement to
some but it is actually illegal. Thankfully, the
Brussels Sewer Museum, manages to feed our
curiosity for the city’s unknown secrets with
a safe and quite hygienic alternative. Unfairly
overlooked, the freshly revamped museum
offers three levels of historical and technical
explanations. And if you can stand the smell,
there’s even an access to an illuminated and
cleaned section of Brussels’ underground
world of drains and sewers. It is also the only
place in Brussels where you can offi cially lay
your eyes on the covered Senne. What makes
the experience even more fun is that the
guides you can book to walk you through are
all authentically jolly sewer workers.
A Dangerous Job
Guy Delvallée, the man now responsible for
the Brussels Sewer Museum, worked during
ten years maintaining the sewers, drains
and the Senne clean. There are no studies
to become égoutiers, so he learned everything
on the job. He recalls: “It is tough
physically and mentally working 8-hours a
day down there. There’s 98 to 100% humidity
so you’re quickly prone to rheumatism.
Also, during winter you spend entire days
without ever seeing the daylight. Eventually,
like a vampire, you end up avoiding all
contact with daylight because it is too bright
for your non-accommodated eyes to stand!