La Fonderie in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean/Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, in the heart of Brussels’ ‘Little Manchester’ district, is a historic part of the city’s heritage. As the Museum of Industry and Labour, it offers an original approach to Brussels’ industrial history combining a site, a museum, a documentation centre, cultural and educational programming and temporary exhibitions. The buildings it occupies – a former foundry and various workshops – were built from 1862 onwards by a small company which, in 1878, became Compagnie des Bronzes, an art foundry (1854–1979) specialising in the production of monumental statues, lighting and decorative objects made of zinc, bronze, iron and other metals. The company was highly regarded and highly skilled, completing major international projects such as the railings at New York Zoo and the Lord Leighton Memorial at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. Closer to home, it was also behind the statues in Brussels’ Petit Sablon/Kleine Zavel and that of King Albert I on the Mont des Arts/Kunstberg. With the decline of the industrial sector, the company closed its doors in 1979. As Brussels underwent a radical transformation at the end of the post-war boom, moving towards the tertiary sector and globalised consumption, Compagnie des Bronzes, like many other firms, factories and workshops, fell victim to the large-scale de-industrialisation of the city, leaving its remarkable premises vacant and the surrounding area severely weakened. This marked the end of the first chapter in its history – emblematic of the economic and industrial growth of Brussels in the 19th century until after the Second World War – and the beginning of the next, when the non-profit organisation La Fonderie emerged in 1983 to save the former foundry site and, as a matter of urgency, other movable and immovable industrial heritage. These years saw some mammoth construction projects in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean/Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, from the building of the metro to the urban motorway along Boulevard Edmond Machtens/Edmond Machtenslaan. These urban planning schemes by the public authorities involved the destruction of heritage but also led to push-back and activism by citizens’ movements, out of which La Fonderie emerged. Spearheaded by Guido Vanderhulst in the wake of other initiatives around the urban landscape and the right of everyone to have a stake in the city, La Fonderie would become a place for action, debate and projects combining the need to preserve industrial heritage sites with the need to make them living spaces with meaning for the city’s residents.

The Plus belle ma ville (‘A more beautiful city’) family workshop will give participants the chance to cast various materials, including coloured plaster and tinted concrete, in simple moulds. The resulting parts will then be assembled to form complexes, housing units and urban developments, in a giant collective building game. As the afternoon progresses, the city will take shape over a large surface area, prompting discussions about its functions, its individual and collective uses, and the concepts of conservation, planning, destruction, reuse and construction.

Visitors will also be able to attend a screening of the film La Fonderie du Vieux Molenbeek (The Old Molenbeek Foundry). In 1985, six years after Compagnie des Bronzes went bankrupt, Marianne Osteaux made a film on the former foundry site, interviewing both former workers and several of those behind the redevelopment/renovation plans at the time. The film opens with a shot of the leaking roof of the former foundry’s large hall and the abandoned machinery below. We witness the often surreal efforts to rescue the company’s heritage, and hear about the importance of saving this unique testimony to working-class life in Old Molenbeek and Brussels. Questions are also raised about the point of conserving it, given the challenges facing the city. The film presents the plans of the time, drawing on other repurposing experiments and museum experiences such as the Avesnois Ecomuseum in France. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion revisiting the Fonderie project almost 40 years on. The panel will include the film’s director, Marion Alecian from Atelier de Recherche et d’Action Urbaines (ARAU), Claire Scohier from Inter-Environnement Bruxelles (IEB), a representative from the Avesnois Ecomuseum and Christine Schaut, a sociologist specialising in the user-testing of urban policies.