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Целью настоящего исследования является изучение реализации концептуальной сущности топонима Брюссель в современном британском общественно-политическом дискурсе (ОПД). Материалом исследования послужили тексты британских медиа и национального корпуса британского английского языка (British National Corpora (BNC)), отобранные методом случайной выборки. Актуальность данного исследования обусловлена факторами текущей ситуации в мировой политике, а также лингвистическими факторами, обусловливающими формирование взглядов на Европейскую политику со стороны разных национальных дискурсов, в частности, британского общественно-политического дискурса. В ходе качественного контент-анализа изучалась реализация репрезентации топонима-концепта «Брюссель» в британском ОПД. На следующем этапе осуществлялся квантитативный анализ выявленных типов интерпретации с целью определения коннотативного аспекта изучаемого концепта в общественно-политическом дискурсе Великобритании. Сделан вывод о том, что на современном этапе в британском ОПД присутствуют традиционные когнитивные метафоры: «Артефактная метафора», «Социоморфная метафора», «Антропоморфная метафора», «Персонификация», «Природоморфная метафора»; а также, «метафора Пространства». Установлено, что в ОПД Британии преобладает отрицательная коннотация, которая выражает отношение к Брюсселю как врагу, сопернику, конкуренту.

Целью данной статьи является изучение коннотаций топонима Брюссель сквозь призму когнитивной метафоры в современном общественно-политическом дискурсе (ОПД) Германии. Материал исследования – Корпус Цифрового словаря немецкого языка (Korpora im Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache) (DWDS) [17], а также ряд газет и информационных порталов Германии таких, как «Spiegel» [21] или «Tagesshau» [31].Актуальность исследования обусловлена факторами текущей ситуации в мировой политике, а также ее репрезентации на языковом уровне. В ходе качественного контент-анализа определены характеристики топонима-концепта Брюссель в ОПД Германии. Квантитативный анализ позволил установить коннотативные аспекты, заключающиеся в преобладании положительной оценки концепта-топонима «Брюссель», представленной слотами «друг», «партнер», «жертва обстоятельств». Результаты исследования свидетельствуют о том, что в современном ОПД Германии в топонимическом концепте «Брюссель» выделяются следующие когнитивные метафоры: «Артефактная метафора», «Социоморфная метафора», «Антропоморфная метафора», «Персонификация», «Медицинская метафора», «Пространство», «Жертва».

It was mainly thanks to the efforts of the Belgian artist Laurent Moonens, who had founded an art academy in the then Belgian Congo, that a group of young art students from Lubumbashi were able to travel to the 1958 World Exhibition in Brussels. Today, their works are regarded as the first generation of modern art in the DR Congo. At the time, the issue of modern art in the Congo was incorporated into the national tasks of the Belgian colonial power; voices criticising power relations or definitions are difficult to find in the sources. Nevertheless, the way in which these works were presented at the World Expo was not a matter of course at the time. This essay analyses the conditions of this very first exhibition, in which European and Congolese works were shown together. All those involved embraced an idea of "humanism", albeit their respective conceptions of it varied.

Disaster management systems have been using digital communication channels for a decade now. While the utilization of digital platforms and smartphone applications enhances the dissemination of knowledge about risks, social networks seem to offer a promising avenue for addressing the issue of citizen engagement during emergencies. However, prior to the 2020 pandemic crisis, little action appeared to have been taken to actively involve citizens. This article aims to explore the role of digital technology in reshaping risk communication and citizen engagement in disaster management. In 2018, we conducted a survey in the Île-de-France and Brussels-Capital regions to assess citizens' expectations and the impact of territorial communication strategies on their perception of risks. Our results suggest that digital technology contributes to disaster management in two key ways: through official communication before and during crises, and by facilitating citizen involvement during crises. Nonetheless, our analysis reveals that while digital technology allows for the proliferation of information channels to reach a wider audience, it does not facilitate the establishment of a bottom-up approach, the revision of risk-related knowledge, or the enhancement of citizen understanding of their role in disaster management.

Abstract Background This paper aims at analysing the impact of partial non-response in the association between urban environment and mental health in Brussels. The potential threats of the partial non-response are biases in survey estimates and statistics. The effect of non-response on statistical associations is often overlooked and evidence in the research literature is lacking. Methods Data from the Belgian Health Interview Survey 2008 and 2013 were used. The association between non-response and potential determinants was explored through logistic regressions. Results Participants with low income, low educational levels, lower or higher age or in households with children were less likely to respond. When adjusting for socio-economic variables, non-response was higher in areas which are less vegetated, more polluted or more urbanised. Because the determinants of non-response and depressive disorders were similar, it is reasonable to assume that there will be more people with mental health problems among the non-respondents. And because more non-responses were found in low vegetation areas, the protective association between green spaces and mental health may be underestimated. Conclusion Our capacity to measure the association between the urban environment and health is affected by non-response in surveys. The non-random spatial and socio-economic distribution of this bias affects the research findings.

In the second round on May 28, 2023, Turkish presidential candidate R.T. Erdogan defeated his rival. The victory was expected, but by no means triumphant, as the supporters of the current government hoped. This insignificant advantage was achieved, according to the author, due to the successes in Erdogan’s foreign policy. Thus, the main task was solved, in the name of which he sought to create the image of a «Strong Turkey», aggravating relations with his partners in NATO and the EU – the extension and strengthening of his own power. In this article, the author focuses on the question: will Erdogan also base his third term through a «tough» (forceful) policy or will he soften relations with partners in the alliance and the EU? An analysis of the available material gives grounds to believe that today Ankara is working for a second option (reducing tension) in relations with partners. The contours of this line appear quite clearly. The author also puts a question – what can Ankara’s progress in this direction mean for its relations with Moscow?

As globalisation changes the sociocultural architecture of urban areas, adolescents increasingly interact with different sets of values and worldviews, which can be a potential cause of conflict and anxiety. To date, there is little empirical research on how adolescents perceive and experience social cohesion in a superdiverse metropolitan context such as the Brussels Capital Region. In this study, we elaborate on the relationship between social cohesion and ethnic diversity, using controversial topics as instruments to examine the erosion of social cohesion. To expose these processes, 34 in-depth interviews were conducted with pupils from Dutch-speaking secondary schools in Brussels. Through thematic analysis, the data revealed four overarching themes of controversies: Brussels, religion/philosophy, ethnicity/national belonging and political horizon, epitomising a paradox of conflict and consensus. Notably, during the interviews, the adolescents reported a climate shaped by actions of ‘silencing’, ‘avoiding’ and ‘voicing’ when discussing controversies in a heterogeneous classroom context. This analysis of adolescents’ perceptions of social cohesion hence corroborates the premise that conflict is not the opposite of cohesiveness, but rather an integral part of a pluralistic society.

ABSTRACTIn April 2021, the Flemish government published their plans for the redevelopment of the R0, the larger ring road around Brussels. These plans include a social cost-benefit analysis (SCBA) and an environmental impact assessment report (EIA) in which the pros and cons of various plan alternatives are weighed against each other. The current paper is a critical analysis of both official documents, and assesses to what extent recent academic insights regarding induced travel are being dealt with in the planning process for this motorway redevelopment project. Drawing upon a literature review, it is concluded that the existing body of knowledge on induced travel is largely ignored by the planning documents scrutinised, which suggests that the SCBA overestimates the economic benefits of the project, while the EIA underestimates the environmental impacts. While a road pricing scheme would potentially support the achievement of the stated planning objectives, it is not included in any of the proposed plan alternatives.

Introduction. Throughout several decades, English has been strengthening its position as lingua franca in international communication. The relevance of the given study is justified by the examination of the English language from the perspective of contact variantology and in the context of gradually emerging new version of English – Euro-English. The aim of the presented work is to consider the socio-political prerequisites for the strengthening of the English language role for intra-European communication, as well as to try to explain the significance of Brussels for this process. Methodology and sources. Scientific publications of domestic and foreign linguists, sociolinguists (D.S. Borodina, Z.G. Proshina, B. Kachru, D. Crystal, E. Edwards), as well as interviews with European politicians and public figures (Michel Guerin, Pascal Smet, Sven Gatz) all comprise the research material. The method of synthesis and analysis, descriptive method, comparative language analysis is used in the process of work on this article. Results and discussion. The widespread usage of English in Europe has led to the creation of several mixed language variants and intra-European communication in English gives the latter the status of a supranational communication language. Belgium is seen as the center for the formation of this new language variant, which is explained by the representation of a significant number of international organizations and corporations in Brussels. In the context of the competition between French and Dutch, the difficult linguistic situation in Belgium finds a peculiar resolution in the regular use of English which some activists propose to make the third official language of the Brussels-Capital Region. Euro-English has already acquired several characteristic lexical, morphosyntactic and phonetical features, whilst the withdrawal of Great Britain from the European Union has provided serious possibilities for Euro-English to continue its formation as an independent language variant free from “care” and control of English native speakers. Conclusion. The existence of the English language variants involves the preservation of uniqueness for each nation where these are used, as well as the enrichment of the language from which these variants are derived from. Gradual formation of Euro-English confirms the presence of high number of professional and everyday communications under which the representatives of various European nations find common language – and that is English.

This article examines how the re-institutionalisation of transport policies starts with the everyday insurgency of fare evasion practices which exist at the fringe of social innovation. In the case of Brussels, fare evaders organised themselves at the heart of the digital world, as virtual communities to claim their rights to mobility and to re-common the public transport infrastructure by mobilising offline evasion actions. This perspective allows to understand fare evasion not as an illegal or criminal practice but as a symptom that embodies how transport policies fail under marketisation. The article concludes that fare evaders have the potential to be bottom-up actors, yet they are limited by socio-economic cleavages and the predominant transport policies.

Starting from the relationship between urban planning and mobility management, TeMA has gradually expanded the view of the covered topics, always following a rigorous scientific in-depth analysis. This section of the Journal, Review Notes, is the expression of a continuous updating of emerging topics concerning relationships among urban planning, mobility and environment, through a collection of short scientific papers. The Review Notes are made of four parts. Each section examines a specific aspect of the broader information storage within the main interests of TeMA Journal. In particular, the Urban practices section aims at presenting recent advancements on relevant topics that underlie the challenges that the cities have to face. The present note provides an overview of the policies and initiatives undertaken in four global cities in response to the Covid-19 outbreak: Madrid (ES), London (UK), Milan (IT) and Brussels (BE). A cross-city analysis is used to derive a taxonomy of urban policy measures. The contribution discusses the effectiveness of each measures in providing answers to epidemic threats in urban areas while, at the same time, improving the sustainability and resilience of urban communities.

From the 1950’s onward, the myriad qualities of all plastic objects were praised without a second thought. This enthusiasm significantly delayed the awareness of their enormous impact and it took almost half a century to consider these objects a part of post-war culture. This essay aims to sketch the history of the appreciation of the relevance of plastics in the museum world, specifically as a part of design heritage, seen from the viewpoint of the collector and the conservator-restorer. The case of the Design Museum Brussels, established in 2015, shows how a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach on conservation can be developed to the benefit of our plastics heritage.

This study answers essential questions about the life and work of Servandoni, who had both French (Lyon) and Italian (Florence) roots. His most important patron was the pope, and his work was influenced by ancient and Vatican Rome (Bernini). Early in his career, he became famous throughout Europe, and his reputation continued to grow after his death in 1766. He was active in London, Lisbon, Brussels, Dresden, Stuttgart and Vienna, where he, for the wedding of Archduke Joseph of Austria to Isabella of Bourbon-Parma in 1759, transformed the Redoutensaal for three different entertainments: a banquet, a ball and a serenata by Gluck, Tetide. In Paris, however, he was not always successful as an architect or painter.

In this paper, I combine urban regime analysis and financialisation scholarships to uncover the role of planning and question the role of state actors in urban development processes. Through an analysis of CityLife in Milan and Tour and Taxis in Brussels, I argue that state actors have a strong agency in decision making as they own a critical resource: planning. My investigation reveals that, in projects characterised by uncertainty and internal conflicts, planning functions as a glue of development coalitions. Local governments mobilise it to bring together private and public interests, in order to achieve their agendas. Nevertheless, this glue function plays out differently in Milan and Brussels. While in Milan local administrations used planning to facilitate the anchoring of capital, in Brussels local governments enacted planning to shift the balance of power between them. This outcome reveals contextual differences that ultimately depend on local governance settings and planning systems. The comparison depicts the making of two different development regimes. CityLife indicates a financialised turn in governance, in which planning choices are driven mainly by economic – and financial – imperatives. Tour and Taxis symbolises an experimental entrepreneurial urban regime, a sort of "laboratory" to test new governance and planning frameworks.

In Belgium, several incidents and public debates have highlighted ethnocentric conceptions of the nation held by public opinion and prominent politicians where immigrants and particularly Muslims are marked as the unwilling “others”. In this framework, immigrants maintaining ethnic identities and transnational ties is classically seen as weakening their integration in the receiving countries. Based on results drawn from 16 focus group discussions and 50 individual semi-structured interviews conducted in Brussels with youth with a foreign background, we show that while a minority of our respondents still identified themselves primarily in reference to the country of origin of their (grand)parents, emphasizing ethnic boundaries and family heritage, most of them have developed a multiple-identity strategy for themselves, which acknowledges both their ethnic background and their belonging to Belgium and Brussels as a multicultural city. Those involved in upward social mobility strategies through higher education or better secondary schools also have more facilities to express the double-presence narrative.

This paper explored the temporary facilities created during the pandemic for use as COVID-19 test centers at Zaventem Airport, the main airport for the city of Brussels, Belgium. The possibilities of modular construction technology and the impact of the building envelope on users’ perception of indoor space comfort and privacy were closely observed. The three main problem statements were as follows: (1) the COVID-19 crisis indirectly influenced the creation of temporary modular buildings with glass envelopes; (2) the modular envelope is adaptable to the existing context; and (3) the envelope meets the needs of the users. This study’s objectives were to identify the critical factors for users’ well-being in temporary modular buildings, and to conduct factor comparisons among different users and between different building-enclosure systems. The study data were collected through a subjective assessment using a SWOT analysis and a survey questionnaire. The glass facade affected the users’ acceptance levels of comfort and privacy. The main results show that the users were satisfied with the level of comfort and dissatisfied with the level of privacy. This information can be used to identify areas for improvement and provide useful feedback to designers and engineers about specific design features and operating strategies for temporary modular emergency healthcare buildings.

This article suggests avenues for improving the Brussels biotope area factor tools in order to take into account during the urbanization of urban wastelands their main characteristics influencing the development of biodiversity and its evolution in space and the duration. The particular context of urban wastelands, a source of covetousness or even conflict that is sometimes difficult to reconcile and which can simultaneously shelter different semi-natural habitats, provides an interesting testing ground for CBS to assess its applicability in urbanization projects. The work is based on both a literature review and applied cases. The article makes it possible to identify potential weighting factors complementary to those assigned in the Brussels CBS tools. They are distinguished into so-called "major" factors essential to the development of the biodiversity of an urban wasteland (soil and water) and into so-called "minor" factors necessary to describe the state and elementary dynamics of the biodiversity of an urban wasteland (area, age, environment, management, land cover). It highlights the relative importance of the combinations of factors capable of simplifying the calculation of the CBS as well as the need to have reference values ​​and spatial units.

Using an analysis of apartment buildings built in Brussels by the real estate developer Etrimo between 1950 and 1970, we investigate the ability of collective housing to build and support an inhabitants’ community.After World War II, Etrimo took advantage of the poor state of existing housing stock and the return of Belgian families from Congo to intensify its production of apartment buildings for aspiring middle-class homeowners. These buildings consisted of repeated, identical three-room dwellings offering all modern comforts for the nuclear family of the thirty-year post-war boom. The portrait of this family, reflected in various commercial brochures and the 14,000 dwellings built in Brussels by the private developer, suggests a relatively homogeneous middle class. How did this imagined, abstract community materialise?First, we present how the juxtaposition of identical households may or may not have produced a homogenous community at the project’s different spatial scales. This analysis is based on primary sources at our disposal: sales brochures, Etrimo advertisement posters, writings by the company’s founder Jean-François Collin on the legal and financial set-up of his business, plans of the housing units and complexes.Second, on the basis of interviews with inhabitants and on-site observations of living practices in the collective spaces of the housing estates, we highlight the model Etrimo housing estates offers contemporary society for new ways of living together.

Starting from the relationship between urban planning and mobility management, TeMA has gradually expanded the view of the covered topics, always following a rigorous scientific in-depth analysis. This section of the Journal, Review Notes, is the expression of a continuous updating of emerging topics concerning relationships among urban planning, mobility and environment, through a collection of short scientific papers. The Review Notes are made of four parts. Each section examines a specific aspect of the broader information storage within the main interests of TeMA Journal. In particular, the Urban practices section aims at presenting recent advancements on relevant topics that underlie the challenges that the cities have to face. The present note provides an overview of the policies and initiatives undertaken in three European cities in response to the Covid-19 outbreak: Milan, Paris and Brussels. A cross-city analysis is used to derive a taxonomy of urban policy measures. The contribution discusses the effectiveness of each measures in providing answers to epidemic threats in urban areas while, at the same time, improving the sustainability and resilience of urban communities.

The process of European integration is often described in architectural terms, starting with the metaphor of a common European house. This paper weights the ubiquitous rhetoric of a supranational architecture against the largely unexplored reality of the actual architecture that has been built to house the European institutions. The focus is on the place and time that have experienced the largest production of architectural hardware: Brussels between 1958 and 1992. Most of the Quartier Européen was built in this window, while the institutions did not have a permanent status and therefore struggled to gain agency over the transformations of the city. On the one hand, the goal is to question how operating for a new and unique structure of power influenced the production of architecture. On the other hand, this is an opportunity to start discussing how architecture contributed to shaping the European Union.

The authors of this contribution are participants in a project, the EUPavilion, that investigates the relationship between European institutions and architecture with the aim to rekindle the debate on Europe as a cultural entity as opposed to a mere political-economic union. Particularly lively around the year 2000, at the time of the introduction of the single currency and the Eastern enlargement of the European Union, this debate came to a halt with the failure of the European Constitution project, and was permanently put to rest by the arrival of the 2008 economic crisis. Now, with a view to restarting the process twenty years on, we thought it could be useful to revisit some of the key events of the time with Romano Prodi, the Italian politician who more than any other contributed to the European integration process.

Maximilian Park in Brussels was the site of a makeshift refugee camp for three months in 2015 when the institutional reception system was unable to provide shelter for newly arriving asylum seekers. Local volunteers stepped in, formed a civic initiative and organized a reception area under the banner ‘Refugees Welcome!’ The civic platform which emerged claimed and asserted (existing) rights for one specific group, asylum seekers, exclusively, and thus did not challenge the exclusive migration regime nor demand transformation. While such a humanitarian approach risks reproducing the exclusive border regime and the inequalities it engenders, political support is a disturbing rupture in the name of equality that resists normative classifications and inaugurates transformation. This article maps out the complex dialectical interrelation between political and humanitarian support and argues that political implications can only be understood through longer-term research, emphasizing processes of transformation that have resulted from these moments of disruption. Therefore, the article revisits Maximilian Park two and four years after the camp and reveals how the humanitarian approach chosen in the camp sustainably transformed the park, adding arrival infrastructures beyond the institutional, and had an impact on how refugees were dealt with and represented. Concluding, the article suggests the notion of ‘solidary humanitarianism’ that providing supplies, meeting acute existential needs and simultaneously articulating political claims that demand structural transformation: the right to shelter, basic supply, presence, and movement for all in the city.

This paper analyses the most commonly used methods to identify industry clusters by applying them to Brussels’ media industry data. The results are compared and benefits as well as limitations are highlighted. The resulting implications for industry cluster research and policy-making are subsequently discussed. It is found that a mixed-methods approach (compared with the application of a single method) can reveal important patterns of industry cluster formation, and that future research should make purpose-driven choices on methods based on known limitations and benefits within the research process.

The Kingdom of Belgium is a Federation in terms of its territorial and administrative structure. Federalism in Belgium has a number of specific features, since it is based on the principles of division not only on the national and administrative principle, but also on linguistic. The main contradictions within the nation-state are related to the interaction of Walloon (French-speaking) and Flemish (speaking Dutch and its dialects) communities. The current situation in the country has developed as a result of a number of state reforms carried out in the second half of the XX — early XXI century. At present, the crisis in Belgium remains unresolved, primarily due to the imbalance in the economic development of the regions and the growing conflicts in this regard and the special status of bilingual Brussels. The situation is complicated by the presence of a German-speaking community in the state. The article assesses the prospects for the development of the situation in Belgium in terms of the transformation of the system of federalism in the country.

Usually, exploring neighbourhoods affected by gentrification processes does not reveal spaces entirely devoted to middle- or upper-class housing, consumption practices or modes of sociability, even in metropolitan contexts wherein urban change pressures are particularly strong. How can we then understand the persistence of working-class appropriations of these neighbourhoods? This article puts forward the idea that such persistence can reveal various forms of “ordinary resistance” of working-class spaces to urban change, that is, forms of local resistance not based on collective mobilizations or urban struggles. This article first elaborates on this proposal on a theoretical level, bringing together notions developed in the field of contemporary working-class sociology and gentrification studies. It then turns to a Brussels cases study to empirically illustrate this idea of ordinary resistance of working-class neighbourhoods.

This article is based on the research I conducted about homeless women in Brussels, aimed at understanding how the various spatial dimensions of the city participate in the construction and deconstruction of power relations. Drawing on the ethnographic fieldwork I did between 2017 and 2019 with women living in a ‘solidary housing program for homeless women’, I analyse both the pragmatic and affective relationships to space of three women, between the ‘solidary’ housing and the city. In doing so, my aim is on the one hand, to give an account of a reality that is often un(der)recongnised and little explored. On the other hand, my purpose is to question the gendered nature of categories such as vulnerability and solidarity which have proven being ineffective in formulating housing proposals that are acceptable for the women themselves. In doing so, they end up reproducing and enhancing gendered inequalities and marginalisation processes.

Mixing productive economic activities with housing is a hot topic in academic and policy discourses on the redevelopment of large cities today. Mixed-use is proposed to reduce adverse effects of modernist planning such as single-use zoning, traffic congestion, and loss of quality in public space. Moreover, productive city discourses plead for the re-integration of industry and manufacturing in the urban tissue. Often, historical examples of successful mixed-use in urban areas serve as a guiding image, with vertical symbiosis appearing as the holy grail of the live-work mix-discourse. This article examines three recent live-work mix projects developed by a public real estate agency in Brussels. We investigate how different spatial layouts shape the links between productive, residential, and other land uses and how potential conflicts between residents and economic actors are mediated. We develop a theoretical framework based on earlier conceptualisations of mixed-use development to analyse the spatial and functional relationships within the projects. We situate them within the housing and productive city policies in Brussels. From this analysis, we conclude that mixed-use should be understood by considering spatial and functional relationships at various scales and by studying the actual spatial layout of shared spaces, logistics and nuisance mitigation. Mixed-use is highly contextual, depending on the characteristics of the area as well as policy goals. The vertical symbiosis between different land uses is but one example of valid mixed-use strategies along with good neighbourship, overlap, and tolerance. As such, future commercial and industrial areas will occur in various degrees of mixity in our cities.

The landscape is increasingly being used as an object and a tool for conducting contemporary urban projects. In such a context, power struggles, tensions, and coalitions between actors contribute to defining the landscape. The article seeks to shed light on this political dimension of the landscape through the case of the re-use of the Tour & Taxis industrial site in Brussels. The article examines the way in which the notion of landscape is addressed in the field : who uses it, and how it is used, what does it cover on such occasions ? And what concrete effects does it have on the urban project, on its development and on the resulting uses ? The study makes it possible to identify the different notions of the landscape that have emerged, developed, circulated, and been confronted to one another, thus composing the different layers in the site resulting from the ways it has been used during the last thirty years as the actors appeared and the key questions concerning heritage, social, economic, and environmental issues evolved.

In this paper, we investigate what the impact of the COVID-19 crisis was on travel patterns and how it could be a catalyst for the transition toward a more sustainable mobility system. To study this, we use the sustainable mobility framework of the 7A's, namely Awareness, Avoidance, Act and Shift, Anticipation of new technologies, Actor involvement, Acceleration, and Adaptation of behavior. For each of the first 5A's, we analyze the changes in mobility brought along in the different periods of the COVID-19 crisis. Our mixed methods approach includes a thematic analysis of online press articles and an analysis of traffic and passenger volume data in Brussels, Belgium. Our results show that the measures to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus had significant consequences for mobility in Brussels by raising Awareness of the positive impacts reduced traffic can have on livability. The measures decreased travel demand (Avoidance) in general, but especially in the context of commuting and shopping trips which declined in favor of telework and online shopping. The majority of mobility measures that were implemented belong to the Act and shift category and they were especially aimed at promoting active mobility like walking. There was also a positive influence on the Anticipation of new technologies, as internal combustion engine sales dropped and electric vehicle sales increased. However, the data analysis also shows an incremental return to business-as-usual after the 2020 summer holidays. Parts of this can be linked back to a disregard of Actor involvement, resulting in a resistance from stakeholders to several of the measures. We conclude with recommendations based on Acceleration and Adaptation of behavior on how to support a sustainable transition and lasting behavioral change in the post-COVID era.

Three essential elements of modernism consolidated through war: a centralised welfare state, a serial industrial apparatus and, often, a territorial tabula rasa. Hence, for many modernist architects and urban planners, post-war Europe became the ideal ground to put their ideas to the test. However, there is a genuine discrepancy between the proposals of the first four Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) and what was massively implemented throughout Europe after 1945. To explore this divergence, Brussels proves to be an interesting case study for two main reasons. First, it hosted the third CIAM in November 1930, where Victor Bourgeois presented his views on housing and cities, in line with the ideals of the time. Second, after the war, Belgium, like many Western countries, experienced a period of euphoria, during which the modernist ideology attained a sudden and broad consensus. In the capital over the following three decades new infrastructure was built, as well as housing developments that derived, at least formally, from the CIAM ideals. This article explores the gap between the ideals and the reality of modernism through a comparison on two scales: the city and housing. Bourgeois’s Grand and Nouveau Bruxelles proposals are compared to the Manhattan Plan and Etrimo’s housing developments. Understanding the gap between the ideals of modernism and its implementation may help identify characteristics of the modernist movement but also, as Lacaton-Vassal pointed out when citing Habermas, complete the “unfinished project” (Habermas, 1984) of modernism.

The article considers positions of EU members-states in light of a possible no-deal Brexit. Meanwhile the majority of EU leaders believe that the concessions to the country set to leave the European Union will create a dangerous precedent for the “European project”. Some representatives of the European establishment have their own concerns regarding a disorderly no-deal Brexit and considering some measures to counter it.

In the present article we investigate the geography and magnitude of the climate footprint of long-distance travel with Brussels, Belgium, as a destination. The internationally networked position of this city goes hand in hand with a strong dependence on international mobility, which largely materializes in impressive volumes of long-distance travel and associated consumption of important amounts of fossil fuel. Despite a surge in concerns about global warming, the climate footprint of most international travel, notably air travel, is not included in the official national and regional climate inventories, or in other words, it is not territorialized. The official climate footprint of the Brussels-Capital Region attained 3.7 Mton CO2eq per year (in 2017). Based on our exploratory calculations, however, the total estimated climate footprint of all Brussels-bound international travel equalled an additional 2.7 Mton CO2eq. In terms of geographical distribution, over 70% of international travellers to Brussels come from Europe, while these represent only 15% of the climate footprint of all international travel to Brussels. We conclude that the practice of not allocating emissions caused by international travel to territorial units has kept the magnitude and complexity of this problem largely under the radar and contributes to the lack of societal support for curbing growth of international aviation.

This study examined the contribution of wealthy migrants to the social transformation of urban territories, analysing the processes and agents that facilitate the settlement of that specific social group in certain neighbourhoods. The results are based on a field survey conducted between February and June 2018 by qualitative methods in the Brussels Solvay neighbourhood. Solvay is located east of the Brussels inner ring and near Matonge, the popular Congolese commercial centre. Since 2000 it has been internationalising and upgrading because of the settlement of a large population of wealthy Europeans, attracted by the international functions of Brussels and the institutions of the European Union. This case-study demonstrates that the arrival of this high-income group is linked to the production of "ready-to-use" spaces for the latter by a multitude of economic agents, by the redevelopment of public space, the construction of a trendy commercial offer and the development of new segments of the real estate market, reflecting a generalized gentrification of the district. Real estate and commercial actors thus benefit from this solvent public, present in the short term and with particular consumption patterns. The public authorities support or even anticipate this transformation. It ousts the working classes of the area by the reduction in the supply of affordable housing, the creation of new commercial structures and policies to control urban space. In this way, the various agents who "make room" for wealthy Europeans in certain Brussels districts actively contribute to the transformation of the city.

Focusing on a population of white-collar immigrants who chose to move from Romania to Brussels-Capital Region between 2014 and 2019, this article signals the formation of a third wave of Romanian migration. The participants in the study are Romanians residing in Brussels, corresponding to the features of the European Man (Homo Europaeus) and they belong to the "middle class" leaving Romania at an accelerated pace motivated by the desire to achieve a transnational lifestyle and an improvement of subjective well-being. We draw our findings from both quantitative data on mobility in the EU and qualitative research that reveals what are the elements that push, attract, and retain RWCIs to Brussels. It is also an opportunity to reflect upon the notion of sense of place experienced by a population that, despite having only recently moved to Brussels, already shows a high degree of attachment.

The project of four pocket parks is being carried out in the framework of the sustainable neighbourhood contracts (contrat de quartier durable), an urban renewal policy at regional scale in Brussels, in which regional funds are subsiding communal urban refurbishment. In a specific communal perimeter – a neighbourhood – a group of operations such as public space renovation, public housing development and public equipment construction are being developed within a four-year program. Since the launch of this policy in 1993, about 80 contracts have been successful. Being part of one of these local contracts (Bockstael), the four new pocket parks are located along the L50 railway lines, on leftover and residual spaces. Meant to complete a set of larger operations, the four plots’ smaller sizes and undefined status locate them at the edge of traditional design and allow for an experimental process. At the intersection of architecture, landscape, urbanism and sociology, the project is carried out for the city of Brussels by a multi-disciplinary team of designers.

By looking at the bodily performances of Polish EU civil servants in Brussels, I aim to show the colonial and racial legacy of Europe. I trace this legacy in struggles over an implicit and dominant European style that emerges in distinctions governing bodily performances in Brussels. This “Eurostyle” is firm but variable; it reflects national specificities and the modernity of Europe. Europe’s colonial power also comes into view through challenges to the Eurostyle, in performances of a resistant and more “religious” Polish body reflecting a self-imposed mission to re-Christianize Europe. Building on observations and interviews, my ethnography shows that a focus on Polishness in Brussels may explain ideological tensions in Poland stipulated by nationalistic and moralistic rhetoric as opposed to that of liberal and secular Europe.

Le présent article porte sur le syncrétisme générique dans les romans de Christopher Gérard, écrivain belge francophone (né en 1962). Aux Armes de Bruxelles (2009) s’apparente au guide littéraire, touristique et gastronomique et au récit de la quête de la mystérieuse Louise ; Porte Louise (2010) est un mélange d’un roman d’espionnage et d’un récit de voyage ; enfin Vogelsang ou la mélancolie du vampire (2012) constitue la synthèse du fantastique, du roman policier, du roman d’amour et du conte philosophique. Nous analysons l’aspect transgénérique des textes, ainsi que divers fonctions et enjeux de cette pratique scripturale de l’auteur, fasciné par l’hybridation postmoderne. L’étude démontre qu’en mélangeant différents genres et en sabotant leurs protocoles, l’écrivain fait du neuf avec du vieux et cherche ainsi à reconfigurer l’esthétique du roman et à le renouveler. Il détruit aussi la composante émotive des genres paralittéraires et, ce faisant, dépassionne efficacement l’aventure pour focaliser l’attention du lecteur sur le thème qui lui est particulièrement cher : Bruxelles, sa ville bien-aimée.

‘How sad a fate to be old, stiff and poor’. Deservingness in almshouse application letters by impoverished Brussels elderly ca. 1750-1800. This article offers a bottom-up perspective to the research on inclusion processes in poor relief in general and elderly care and almshouses in specific at the end of the Ancien Régime. By means of an extensive study of the application letters sent to the Brussels ‘Twaalf Apostelen’ almshouse between 1750 and 1800, the article examines how deservingness is anticipated by the elderly applicants and how it is argued in their discourses. In addition, the article offers insight into the mental framework of these elderly men surrounding coping strategies and channels through which care should or could be obtained. By doing this, the article examines to which extent processes of formalization during previous centuries influenced the mental framework of the elderly during the second half of the eighteenth century.

‘How sad a fate to be old, stiff and poor’. Deservingness in almshouse application letters by impoverished Brussels elderly ca. 1750-1800. This article offers a bottom-up perspective to the research on inclusion processes in poor relief in general and elderly care and almshouses in specific at the end of the Ancien Régime. By means of an extensive study of the application letters sent to the Brussels ‘Twaalf Apostelen’ almshouse between 1750 and 1800, the article examines how deservingness is anticipated by the elderly applicants and how it is argued in their discourses. In addition, the article offers insight into the mental framework of these elderly men surrounding coping strategies and channels through which care should or could be obtained. By doing this, the article examines to which extent processes of formalization during previous centuries influenced the mental framework of the elderly during the second half of the eighteenth century.

‘How sad a fate to be old, stiff and poor’. Deservingness in almshouse application letters by impoverished Brussels elderly ca. 1750-1800. This article offers a bottom-up perspective to the research on inclusion processes in poor relief in general and elderly care and almshouses in specific at the end of the Ancien Régime. By means of an extensive study of the application letters sent to the Brussels ‘Twaalf Apostelen’ almshouse between 1750 and 1800, the article examines how deservingness is anticipated by the elderly applicants and how it is argued in their discourses. In addition, the article offers insight into the mental framework of these elderly men surrounding coping strategies and channels through which care should or could be obtained. By doing this, the article examines to which extent processes of formalization during previous centuries influenced the mental framework of the elderly during the second half of the eighteenth century.

Focusing on the Brussels urban environment, this paper investigates spatial mutations produced by key critical transitions to accommodate new social and living conditions for collective purposes. Using CAD re-drawings, a systematic comparison of residential schemes identifies the evolutionary mechanism that connects manifold changes in the city and domestic spaces. This analysis defines a genealogical framework to observe how specific residential archetypes have shaped Brussels’ sociocultural identity and distinguishes contemporary housing initiatives dealing with current and future challenges. While during the 19th century, interwar, and postwar periods, spatial features evolved from individual, single-family houses to residential schemes bearing collective, egalitarian dwellings, contemporary initiatives are relevant for their experimental solutions, translating into housing design new collective ways of living. This trajectory demonstrates that collective housing provides new insights for designing future types of urban housing. Brussels contemporary housing can shed light on the fact that current crises generated by urban issues, such as demographic growth, migratory and gentrification dynamics, affordability and the COVID-19 pandemic, are accelerating the transition towards the 21st-century city. Eventually, the Belgian capital now has the opportunity to combine two crucial questions, such as typological innovation and sustainability, to successfully approach the coming transition period from social and environmental perspectives.

Perceived discrimination, the perception of systematic exclusion due to background characteristics, has been studied extensively in general. The political consequences of this perception remain underexplored for adolescents. Discrimination may engender a rejection of common political values such as the support for democratic politics. Using the data of 1789 pupils with an average age of 16 years (grade 10) from 24 schools in Brussels, we focus on the consequences of perceived discrimination in attitudes towards violence, as well as on a rejection of representative democracy. The outcomes of a multilevel analysis suggest that high levels of self-reported perceived discrimination are significantly associated with an anti-democratic attitude (rejection of the current form of representative democracy) and the willingness to use violence. In a context in which 75% of pupils have a non-native background, these findings reveal the challenges for future forms of civic education.

The brothers Ferdinand III and Archduke Leopold Wilhelm shared their interests in poetry and music since their youth. Both of them wrote poems, but only Ferdinand composed music. He had his own musical establishment since 1630, but his younger brother, a cleric and military leader, did not care about one before 1640/41, when he sent the composer Giacinto Cornacchioli to Italy to hire musicians and a poet and to buy music. When he arrived at Brussels as governor in 1647, he enlarged this establishment and had the first opera performed there in 1650. The letters by Cornacchioli and the brothers are the main sources for the new informations we now possess. In two short digressions other findings are proposed: the reason for Giovanni Priuli's leave from the Imperial court in 1626 and the retrieval of the 17th-centuryscore of Ferdinand III's opera "Drama musicum" (1648), missed since 1893.

Endowed with a dense artistic landscape, the city of Brussels seems to be in the midst of an intense cultural renewal. While traditional institutions suffer, like the federal museums and the royal opera house, new art spaces are created such as the contemporary art centre Wiels. Moreover, the opening of a large museum of modern and contemporary art in a former industrial site in 2020 is intended to position Brussels among the European cultural metropolises, alongside Paris and Berlin. In its cultural trajectory, the Belgian capital shows some interesting similarities with the German capital. Assuming that the current Brussels cultural landscape shows resemblance with the “Berlin model” of the 1990s, this paper argues that a fruitful comparison is worth between two of the most discussed European metropolises. The Berlin prism offers to put Brussels and its cultural scenes in perspective.

Scientists as well as the general public remember the terrorist attacks that took place in Brussels in March 2016. This was not a stand-alone event since other places were hit previously. This changes people’s perception of places – in tourism terms, destinations - and may affect tourists’ behavior.In this paper, we explore the effects on two levels. First we compare, for 2015 and 2016, the month-by-month evolution of the number of (international) arrivals, overnight stays and hotels’ occupancy rates which tend to respond very quickly, affected by tourists staying away. It is much more difficult to detect changes of feelings and attitude among tourists. We explored the latter via a survey in Brussels and also in Antwerp and Bruges as a kind of benchmark.The results represent bad and good news for the tourism industry in Brussels and Belgium and for Brussels/Belgium as a destination. The bad news is that terrorist attacks did not pass unnoticed. On the contrary, they had an effect on the visitors’ behavior in terms of arrivals and overnight stays (with effects on e.g. hotel occupancy) for several months. We see that the effects are felt far beyond the place that suffered from the attack(s), particularly if this place is a brand for the region or for the country. The good news is that tourists, after ca. six months, seem to feel safe again. Therefore, our results are in line with the international literature but our attention is drawn towards the fact that some did adapt their behavior by self-moderation and by avoiding certain places from a safety perspective as well as differences among countries of origin.

Since its foundation in 2002, the laboratory of the Department of Archaeology of the Brussels Regional Public Service has been responsible for the conservation and restoration of all archaeological objects unearthed within the territory of the Brussels Capital Region. The volume of artefacts collected in the Region has drastically increased following the systematic organization of preventive archaeological research. It quickly became clear that in order to make the best use of available resources, strategic decisions would have to be made. An extensive and complete active conservation and restoration of every object found during an archaeological excavation is often neither realistically possible nor necessarily useful. The principal goal of archaeological conservation is the retrieval of information, held by the objects to further our understanding of the past. During this process it is important to try and minimize the input of resources while attempting to maximize the informational output and to preserve the future informational potential of the artefacts. Protocols for treatment should be developed for the different types of materials encountered, clearly defining different possible levels of preventive conservation, active conservation and restoration. These levels can range from strictly passive or preventive conservation to highly complex active conservation or restoration treatments. The choice for any level of treatment should be determined by the potential information yield of an object and therefore the resources invested should always be balanced with the results that could predictably be obtained. This does require careful and professional assessment of all archaeological finds by a conservator, in order to recognize the informational potential of each object and to correctly apply the established protocol.

On January 2016, a joint consortium of the Flemish and Brussels Chief Architects published Metropolitan Landscapes. Espaces ouvert, base de développement urbain/Open ruimte als basis voor stedelijke ontwikkeling. Based on the assumption that open spaces have the potential to spur and structure future urban development and surpass administrative boundaries, Metropolitan Landscapes presents research by design, authored by four prominent design firms with the intention of jumpstarting conversations about a shared spatial vision for the fragmented territory of Brussels and its periphery. In this article, we examine the methodology and definitions put forth by Bureau Bas Smets & List, explore the historical context that has rendered the landscape approach so promising in Brussels, and perform a thematic and critical reading of the four projects and their underlying rationale. These projects demonstrate the potential of landscape to engender novel territorial solutions. However, by choosing to ignore competing spatial claims and tending towards a techno-managerial rationale based on infrastructural and ecological systems, these designs raise questions as to the capacity of the landscape approach to deal with everpresent socio-political concerns in Brussels.

On January 2016, a joint consortium of the Flemish and Brussels Chief Architects published Metropolitan Landscapes. Espaces ouvert, base de développement urbain/Open ruimte als basis voor stedelijke ontwikkeling. Based on the assumption that open spaces have the potential to spur and structure future urban development and surpass administrative boundaries, Metropolitan Landscapes presents research by design, authored by four prominent design firms with the intention of jumpstarting conversations about a shared spatial vision for the fragmented territory of Brussels and its periphery. In this article, we examine the methodology and definitions put forth by Bureau Bas Smets & List, explore the historical context that has rendered the landscape approach so promising in Brussels, and perform a thematic and critical reading of the four projects and their underlying rationale. These projects demonstrate the potential of landscape to engender novel territorial solutions. However, by choosing to ignore competing spatial claims and tending towards a techno-managerial rationale based on infrastructural and ecological systems, these designs raise questions as to the capacity of the landscape approach to deal with everpresent socio-political concerns in Brussels.