Brussels & Its Institutions. Between the Lower Town and the Upper Town
(2022) Institutions and the City: The Role of Architecture — ISBN: [978-3-03860-293-4], p. 60-81, published
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- THE SENNE, A PRIMARY HYDROGRAPHIC NETWORK — As is the case with many cities, the history of Brussels, is linked to the history of its river. The Senne flows from south to north, reaching the Scheldt and the city of Antwerp via the Dyle and the Rupel. The Senne is an irregular river. Its basin floods frequently, resulting in vast marshlands. This marsh gave the city not only its name—bruok (marsh) and sella (house)—but also its most famous drink, lambic, whose natural fermentation is made possible by wild yeast found only in the Senne valley. The river is at the centre of a hydrographic network made up of many tributaries, some of which have given their names to districts familiar to residents of the city, from Molenbeek to Woluwe, for instance. This network gave rise to the first roads that ran parallel or perpendicularly to it, but also to the first human settlements from Roman times. Today the Senne is covered over and its course is only occasionally visible in the city. And yet this primary hydrographic network could be at the heart of the fabric of the city of tomorrow, whether locally with the uncovering of the Senne and some of its tributaries or more widely as a feature structuring the landscape , as presented in the BXL 2040 studies.
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Ledent, G., & Vandernoot, C. (2022). Brussels & Its Institutions. Between the Lower Town and the Upper Town. In Gérald Ledent, Cécile Vandernoot (ed.), Institutions and the City: The Role of Architecture (p. p. 60-81). Park Books. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/233693