The block in the Marollen between Spiegelstraat, Ursulinenstraat and Brigittinenstraat survived the war unscathed, but then suffered greatly from the North-South train connection that cut the area in two in 1952. No less disastrous was the construction, in 1968, of a twelve-storey social-housing apartment building that was supposed to counteract decay and housing shortage in the neighbourhood. The entire city block had to make way for it. As a consolation prize, a small park was created at the foot of the residential tower’s esplanade. Only the seventeenth-century Brigittines Chapel miraculously escaped demolition. The design by Générale¹ for Urban Park Jonction links all those remains back into a coherent urban space. It accomplishes that hat trick with a single, simple gesture. 1 L’Escaut Architectures won the competition. Générale, an offshoot of L’Escaut, developed the project in the following years.

The block between the railway line, Spiegelstraat and Visitandinenstraat has a steep slope. It stops against the five-metre-high wall in blue stone of the North-South train connection. Beneath the railway lines lies the disused Kapellekerk station, 1800 m2. The sociocultural organization Recyclart moved in in 1999, bringing a bit of oxygen to the neighbourhood.