The Rampart, The Traffic Artery, and the Park; Designing for the city regions of Antwerp
Through a close reading of Antwerp’s current spatial and socio-economic composition, and the introduction of the interplay between the city’s three defining paradigms – abstracted to ‘The Rampart, the Traffic Artery, and the Park’ – this study tries to sketch a unifying strategy for Antwerp’s metropole. A strategy that embeds residential, economic, cultural, recreational, climatic, and historical motives within the different city regions. Thereby improving the connection between the left and right side of the river; transitioning the suburban region to a more polycentric structure while maintaining a spatial relation to the city; and explicitly manages the horizontal growth of the periphery. But that most importantly, captures the metropole in a single narrative from its inner-city to its outer edges. Graduation thesis prepared for the master’s degree in urban design at the Eindhoven University of Technology.
Through a close reading of Antwerp’s current spatial and socio-economic composition, and the introduction of the interplay between the city’s three defining paradigms – abstracted to ‘The Rampart, the Traffic Artery, and the Park’ – this study tries to sketch a unifying strategy for Antwerp’s metropole. A strategy that embeds residential, economic, cultural, recreational, climatic, and historical motives within the different city regions. Thereby improving the connection between the left and right side of the river; transitioning the suburban region to a more polycentric structure while maintaining a spatial relation to the city; and explicitly manages the horizontal growth of the periphery. But that most importantly, captures the metropole in a single narrative from its inner-city to its outer edges.
Graduation thesis prepared for the master’s degree in urban design at the Eindhoven University of Technology.
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
Less direct accessibility
spiraling out of the city centre
Radial connections become more
important towards the periphery
At the same time however, reading the jurisdictional borders present in the
map on the previous page, we see that the remnants of the National Redoubt
are not only situated in a total of 23 different municipalities, but also cross
provincial borders. The final section of the left bank forts near Sint-Niklaas
are situated in the Province of Oost-Vlaanderen (East-Flanders); the rest is in
Antwerp’s province.
All the forts are currently the property of the municipalities they inhabit. This is
the result of an arrangement started in 1971 and finalised in 1977, in which
the ministry of national defence (ministerie van landsverdediging) sold the forts
to the ministry of finance, which subsequently sold it to the municipalities. This
as a result of the decree that made the forts lose their military status (Nagels,
2012, p. 35). This fragmentation over so many municipalities is probably the
reason why there is no overarching strategy regarding the fortification system.
Figure 2.4
Drawing of the Accessibility of the defence
structures. The map used is from
Google Maps (Google, 2020).
Accessibility of the defence structures
The drawing to the left shows the accessibility of the defence structures.
Reachability for the Brialmont belt is notability, and unsurprisingly, better for
all modes of transport than that of the peripheral forts, with the exception of
the bicycle network, which grands equal access to all forts. Public transport is
the category that is lagging behind; some of the forts on the left bank are not
a reachable via bus or train. Starting from Antwerp central station, all forts
are accessible by car in 30 minutes, bicycle in 90 minutes, and 60 minutes
by public transport (those that are reachable by public transport) (TravelTime,
2020).
The infrastructural network of highways, trunk roads, bicycle highways,
and public transport, is mainly based on a radial system extending
outwards from Antwerp. A few concentric connections are present. The
Krijgsbaan, the historic road giving access to the Brialmont forts, is an important
traffic artery of the suburban region. The Krijgsbaan on the left bank has
a similar, but less extensive role. A section of the anti-tank ditch doubles as a
recreational bicycle path. Almost the entirety of the eastern and western flanks
are accessible via a concentric bicycle (highway). However, distances between
access roads and the forts do become longer. For highways and train traffic,
only the western flank is accessible via a concentric connection. As a result, we
see that the peripheral forts are much more reliant on the radial connections
extending from Antwerp, than the inner belts.
Following the fortification spiral outward from the city, we find that
the forts are very reachable up until the Lunette Halve Maan, where the
highway intersects the Krijgsbaan of the left bank. The spiral can be picked
up again after Fort Sint-Marie, at the border of the harbour as a bicycle road.
A ferry provides crossing between the two remaining Scheldt forts. Following
107
Change language