Mining colonies: Flemish vernacular style, Beringen-Mijn

A focus on vernacular architecture is one of the pillars that supported the garden city esthetic as advocated by Raymond Unwin. He in turn was heavily influenced by German and Austrian sources that tried to define and redefine indigenous design features in buildings. If the aim was to provide a new type of living environment that married city and country the typology had to be distilled out of existing examples of both urban and rural architecture.  As vernacular architecture reflects local traditions it was viewed to be the perfect expression of the built environment that aimed to house both former urbanites and new arrivals from the countryside. The focus on a vernacular architecture was both esthetic and social in nature.

In Beringen-Mijn a mining colony was developed to house miners and other personnel. Most miners came from an impoverished rural background. It was deemed fit to house them in structures reflecting the Flemish building vernacular. Some of the buildings though have a very visible Walloon influence with buildings (made to look like they are) constructed as half-timbered houses with an infill of either plaster or brick. This makes sense when one considers that mining was initiated, directed and financed by French speaking Belgians.

The Mulhouse Quadrangles (1907-08) were the first permanent houses to be built north of the colliery. Six were built with concrete blocks that were manufactured by the mine company. The buildings were made to look like they had been built in stone. The small side extensions have been greatly extended over the years, resulting in a continuous row of rather low houses between a street and a narrow lane.

The Laan op Vurten (Vurten Avenue) is an old thoroughfare that has been incorporated into the mining colony. The large houses (1910) were designed in a simple Walloon style with projecting eaves and brick facades subdivided by bands of natural stone that accentuate the windows and thus every storey of the house. A few houses are built in a Flemish vernacular with stepped and pointed gables and non-projecting eaves.

The Walloon vernacular is present in both workmen's housing as well as the villas for the white collar personnel. Although some people believe the architecture to be based on English garden city examples the architectural expression is modeled on examples of vernacular buildings in Wallonia. The projecting eaves, use of banding above the windows and flat chimneys are testament to this.

Everywhere in the mining colony the past is visible. The old railway still runs around the first garden village (Cité-West). Other remnants of the mining history such as this water tower can be seen from within the mijn-cité.

 

 The Cité-Oost (1920-'24) was laid out along winding streets with a lot of variation in the architecture. Because of the reoccurring use of the same materials and the same colours the garden village does feel like a whole.

 

In the Cité-Oost two closes were laid out. They are used as playing fields and not as a green around which houses are built. Thus one of the most recognizable morphologic elements of a garden city was functionally transformed in this mining colony.

The enormous church of Saint Theodardus (1939-'43) named after the nineteenth bishop of Maastricht. It is built in a neo-byzantine style. The primary school (1927) that sits at the heart of the Cité-Oost is a large brick building built around two central courts.

The football stadium (1924-'25) now sits empty. It was built as an ensemble with two short terraces on each side flanking the entrance.

 

The Stadionlaan connects the football stadium with the Beverlosesteenweg. The street is lined with semi-detached houses (1925) in a Flemish vernacular style.

The Kioskplein is dominated by the Casino (left) on the far end of the ensemble and the bandstand in a rustic style (right) in the middle of the public garden. Both the community hall (Casino) and the bandstand (muziekkiosk) are built in an eclectic style mixing both Walloon and Alpine architecture.

A view of the large houses (1927) for middle management that sit around the beautiful Kioskplein. Seen here from the public garden the Flemish vernacular style in which these houses were built is clearly visible. A lot of attention had been paid to the gables the windows and the window shutters on the ground floor. The ensemble is protected as a heritage site.

 

The Eeuwfeestplein (Centenary Square) consists of a tapering public garden with buildings on either side and a Hotel (a lodgings for single male workers) at its end. The whole (1929) was designed as an ensemble and is protected as a heritage site.

The Gouden Jubileum Plein is not a square like the name suggests but a large diamond shaped public garden with widely spaced houses (1946) around it in a rather formal arrangement. The brick houses are all in a (simplified) Flemish vernacular style.