In 1981, three new stations were created to extend metro line 1 westwards: Comte de Flandre, Étangs Noirs and Beekkant. Until then, the first metro sections in the Pentagon had caused the demolition of only a few buildings, notably on Rue de l’Écuyer and Rue de l’Évêque. In Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, however, the works cut deeply into the urban fabric and displaced hundreds of residents from working-class neighbourhoods: 787 people were evicted and 150 buildings demolished.
Reconstruction, involving both buildings and the entire public space — left derelict by the then Ministry of Communications — required significant funding. It only began in 1994, twenty years after the first demolitions.
This visit revisits this vast operation of urban reconstruction through housing projects developed by the Regional Development Company, now citydev.brussels, which helped redraw the district and, more broadly, transform the city from the 1990s onwards.