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Vilvoorde, a town
in Flanders, Belgium, near Brussels,
 was
one of the first cities in Europe to live through the new industrial
expansion of the late 19th and early 20th century.This proved to be as much a curse as a blessing,
squandering the town with industrial buildings. Most of them are
torn down by now, a few have been protected as a site of industrial
archeology and a grim reminder of the past.
Recently, the city's economy has been rebooted
as the television Hollywood of Belgium.
It is not the first time the city has raised
from its ashes.
It developed from a crossing place at the Senne
river of a 3rd century Roman road between Castellum and Tungri
. There is supposed to have been a Roman farm on the fertile ground
near the river, a villa, though today only a tumulus, a Roman
grave, remains of these times.
 The
crossing ("fuordo") near the villa gave its name to the town,
first mentioned in the late 8th century as Filfuordo. In 1192
it was declared a free city by the Brabant duke Hendrik I, and
continued to prosper into the next centuries. Through the Senne
river, the town had access to the port of Antwerp, and exported
a good quality of woolen cloth.Due to it's central location, it developed into a military headquarters during the 14th century. Even though it lost some importance to the city of Brussels, it retained an economic weight. As a result, the city could welcome Protestants in the 16th century without much repression of the authorities. The city lost significance, but regained momentum under Austrian rule by the digging of the canal from Charleroi and Brussels to the Rupel river.  Essentially,
it replaced the narrow Senne river with a very modern wide water
road, that gave Brussels its own port, most of it on the Vilvoorde
territory. The port has remained to this day.In the 19th century, the first railroad on
the European continent was built between Brussels and Mechelen,
passing through the city.
 The
area between the Senne river, the canal and the new railroad,
welcomed new industries who could take advantage of this unique
crossroad of modern communications. In the late 19th century and
early 20th century, the railroad net was extended with local private
lines, giving access to even more areas in the town.The working class population increased accordingly.
It gave birth to a hard-boiled breed of socialism, a branch of
the left-wing, almost anarchist Brussels chapter.
By the end of the sixties, however, the prosperity
dream was over and the town collapsed. Again. In 1997, another
deadly blow came to the town when the large assembling plant for
French Renault cars was closed, pushing 3,000 workers and several
other small companies out of work. A new plan to develop service
industries has been recently introduced.
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Vilvoorde City |
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