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.
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System of chaussees and railways.
The infrastructure of the inner belts
The map on the previous spread shows the relation of the inner fortification
belts to Antwerp’s infrastructure system. It shows the two military roads, the
Krijgsbanen, linking the forts on the left and right bank, respectively. The forts
4 through 8 were also accessible via train, and a telegraph line; an idea
implemented by Henri Alexis Brialmont (Nagels, 2012, p. 51). Why only these
four forts received this infrastructure is not clear. On the left bank, only the Fort
of Zwijndrecht is accessible via train.
The concentric roads connecting the different forts together intersect
with the most important access roads to the city; the chaussees. These roads
led to the Grote Omwalling where eighteen monumental Neo-Baroque gates
were constructed to allow entrance to the city (Nagels, 2012, p. 34). Access
from the Waasland, the other side of the Scheldt, was done by ferry. The
two main approaches were via the Chaussee to Ghent or the railway, both
of which held a visual axis with the cathedral. We see another road on the
Borgerweertpolder – the Langen Gaan Weg – a road that was called ‘Grote
Groene Weghe’ in the 17th century. Further specifics on this road are missing,
other than that it was supposed to give access to the northern section of the
polder in case of an inundation (Antrop, De Maeyer, & Vandermotten, 2006,
p. 19).
Figure 3.4
The system of chaussees and railways.
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