The Rampart, The Traffic Artery, and the Park; Designing for the city regions of Antwerp

of the city, the Albert Canal has received its current shape, and now connects
to the new parts of Antwerp’s harbour.
On the left side of the river, big changed have occurred. The grid,
that is so familiar for Linkeroever has been constructed, on a now almost fully
raised landscape. All the fortifications, except for the moat and fort Burcht, and
sections of the ditch structure, have disappeared under sand from the Scheldt.
The grid structure present on Linkeroever was based on the plan of De Heem
and Vanaverbeke, but not identical. After the war, the idea of building one
coherent plan had made place for a pragmatic sector division that filled the
grid with various building typologies. To the north, we see the structures of the
popular recreational spot Sint Anna beach, which was at its peak after the war.
Further to the west we see an extensive grid pattern; the remnants of Camp
Tophat, an American repatriation camp from after World War II. Parts of this
grid structure is still visible in the current Sint Annabos (Schoofs, 2003a). We
further see the construction of the yacht club on the east side of Linkeroever,
and that the railway structure has become more extensive with a turn structure
near Galgeweel.
Figure 1.23
Map of Antwerp around 1969 (Cartesius.be,
c; Topotijdreis, n.d.).
1969
The map of 1969 shows the explosive growth the suburban region of Antwerp
has experienced in the post-war baby boom. We also see that the harbour has
grown quite substantially from the previous map. Another notable change is
the removal of the Grote Omwalling in favour of the highway ring of Antwerp;
the R1.
The highway was planned since the end of the 1950s. In 1958, a
royal decree determined the track of the highway ring around Antwerp. The
construction started in the early 1960s and was completed by 1969. The highway
follows the contours of the ramparts, and all the major junctions are located
at the lunettes of the ramparts; these locations held a lot of space. Only
two small sections of the lunettes have been preserved in the southern part of
the city. In the north, about half of Noordkasteel has survived, but this would
soon also be further reduced. The track of the Omwalling was used because it
was lower than the other parts of the city and suburbs. However, this means the
highway also runs on the track of an old water way, which means the highway
needs to be constantly dewatered (De Urbanisten; Witteveen+Bos; Common
Ground, 2019, p. 32). The ring also marked the third Scheldt crossing; the
Kennedytunnel. A tunnel for cars opened in 1969. Left of the tunnel, we can
still see the dry dock used to construct the tunnel segments. To the right of
the tunnel a train tunnel was built, that connect the train from the Waasland
directly to the city, in a track along the ring. This train tunnel would soon mean
the departure of the train station on Linkeroever (1971). Almost simultaneously
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