Historische schets
 
De Zebrastraat te Gent.
Een Sociaal Huisvestingsproject van voor W.O.I

The Zebra-Street in Ghent.
A Prewar (Worldwar I) Social Housing Project

Van de Steene Luc. Juni 1983
 
 
Introduction
In 1904 the Ghent Society of Workman’s Houses Limited Company was founded. This company, which still exists, erected before the First Worldwar 241 houses based on the plans of the town’s architect, Ch. Van Rysselberghe. The most remarkable creation is the complex around and elliptical courtyard in the Zebra-Street.
Our case-study treats this group of buildings, which is situated in the former Muinkmeersen, next to King Albert Park in the South of Ghent.
 
The 19th and 20th Century: dismantlement, new growth and modern town development
Until 1800 more and more country-dwellers settled in the centre of the town. They were attacted by the new industries and the opportunities of employment as a result of the growing industrialisation.
 
As a result of that enormous growth of population, the city was nearly fully built-up inside the 16th century wall in the course of the second half of the 19th century. From 1860 until 1880 that built-up surface increased threefold (640 hectares) in comparison with 1800 (200 hectares).
 
All gates disappeared and by pulling-down the town walls Ghent became surrounded by wide boulevards. The walls of the Middle Ages were especially exceeded in the northern - before the extension of the port - eastern and southern direction.
 
The parts that had remained rural, were townified, sanitated and urbanised. The construction of new streets took place mostely in an accidental way in the neighbourhood of important buildings or institutes and it was not based on a planned street-design in accordance to the new insights of town-building. In that way the quarter Muinkmeersen, until then nearly uncultivated, developed only after the construction of the railway (1837) and the erection of the zoological gardens (1891). In consequence of these constructions the quarter acquired mainly a middle-class, even bourgeois character. But we have to mention that adjoining these bourgeois dwellings a lot of workman’s houses were built. This mixing of two housing-types is generally spread in Ghent, but according to the environment, one of both types dominates.
 
Along the headaxes there are mainly trade premises or big houses wth fronts constructed in detail. The smaller off-streets are usually surrounded by smaller parcels and by medium-sized middle-class houses or workman’s dwellings.
 
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