Residential landscapes—Garden design, urban planning and social formation in Belgium

Abstract

This paper aims at providing a historical understanding of the role of gardens and green spaces in urbanization and urban planning, as well as in processes of social formation and social mobility that took place on the background of a changing spatial, socio-economical and political context in Belgium in the period 1889–1940. The research is based on a number of case studies, which represent different stages and themes in the evolution of garden design, urban planning and society: 1) vernacular versus designed gardens and landscapes; 2) the popularization of the garden and the development of a new framework for urban planning; 3) the garden city versus private arcadia and 4) modern garden design and the rise of the middle class (1930–1940). Through an analysis of designs and discourses of, amongst others, leading landscape architects/urban planners Louis Van der Swaelmen, Jules Buyssens and Jean Canneel-Claes, the paper exposes a number of ambiguities and tensions, for example between the ‘vernacular garden’ and the ‘garden of the establishment’ and between the deep-rooted dream of a privately owned house and garden, and attempts to create new social and spatial frameworks that surpass the individual lot. The paper concludes that these tensions can still be traced in the context in which landscape designers and urban planners work today. This historical awareness, however, can help them to set out strategic goals for the contemporary garden as a place of both production and consumption, and as a place where social identity is shaped.