2019 - 1

Inhoud

Rosa Kösters 
Over de doorbaak van noodwoningen. De wederopbouw in Arnhem en Venlo, 1944-1946

Bente Marschall
Requiescant in pompa. Bourgondische vorstelijke uitvaartceremonies als symbolisch en ruimtelijk communicatiemiddel

Vitaly Volkov
Mobiliteit in Antwerpen tussen functionaliteit en leefbaarheid: visies en beleid

Review

Arie van Steensel, Margo Buelens-Terryn, Hannelore Franck, Desiree Krikken, Alessandra De Mulder, Sanne Muurling, Bob Pierik, Sophie Rose, Charris De Smet, Mathijs Speecke, Sietske Van den Wyngaert
Stadsgeschiedenis in Belgische en Nederlandse historische tijdschriften (2017)

Abstracts 

Rosa Kösters, On the breakthrough of emergency housing. Reconstruction in Arnhem and Venlo, 1944-1946
This article questions the traditional view on Dutch urban emergency homes after World War II. The small-scale, detailed analysis of emergency housing programs in the cities of Arnhem and Venlo exposes a multidimensional history of the phenomenon as it includes the perspectives of planners and local government officials. In general, the discourse on post-war reconstruction presents post-war emergency homes as a logical step in the breakthrough of the modern city with standardised, mass-produced dwellings. However, in Arnhem and Venlo a different reality existed: planners were initially not in favour of it and for local governments practicing with prefabrication was not important. Thereby the article discusses the problems that arise from the teleological tendencies in the historiography on post-war reconstruction and hopes to contribute to recent debates on new reconstruction perspectives.

Bente Marschall, Requiescant in pompa. The ducal Burgundian funeral ceremonies as means of symbolic and spatial communication
After the deaths of the Burgundian dukes Philip the Bold (1404), Philip the Good (1467) and Philip the Fair (1506) several funeral ceremonies were organised in, amongst other towns, Dijon (1404), Bruges (1467) and Mechelen (1507). This article analyses these three ceremonies within the context of the so-called ‘Burgundian Theatre State’, and focusses on how the relations between the duke and the towns were formed and expressed in an urban spatial setting. It stresses that urban space was not simply ‘contested’ and that both the Burgundian-Habsburg dynasty and the urban elites had an interest in staging these ceremonies and used both the public space in the town and the sacral space of the churches to express their political message.

Vitaly Volkov, Mobility in Antwerp between functionalism and liveability: visions and policy
This article explores the policy towards transport and mobility in Antwerp (Belgium) in around 1970-1975. The main subjects studied are the creation of the first pedestrian zone and the construction of the underground light rail transport system, known as pre-metro. The article examines the contributions and interactions of the main actors: the Ministry of Transport, the city government and new social movements.
Moreover, the article examines the evolution of ideas concerning transport and mobility. The main conclusion is that during the seventies, the older functionalist vision of mobility, which focused on large-scale planning and technological efficiency, was gradually replaced by a more human-centered vision, which emphasized ‘soft’ values, such as liveability, and favored a small-scale approach.