The so-called "11 angles" project concerns 11 emblematic corner houses in the Osseghem district. Historically, the series is not linked, but refers to two distinct working-class housing estates built from 1920 onwards. Indeed, the Nogent housing estate and the Gulden Bodem housing estate (A. De Saulnier) are part of a group of Molenbeek garden housing estates from the beginning of the 20th century, initiated by the Diongre housing estate further to the west. One corner is an exception: the building in Rue du Lierre n°2 is part of the Van Meulecom housing estate. Its necessary renovation and its proximity to the Gulden Bodem estate made it the 11th link in this renovation project.
Whereas the composition of a working-class housing estate usually tends to define a formal cohesion on a specific territory, these garden estates are thought of as fragments of cities with their own logic, but embedded in a larger urban whole. From this heritage, the corner houses are essentially distinguished by their singular composition. They are also the only ones that have remained the property of the Molenbeek Housing Corporation.
These architectures remain the last ideological markers of an era. The renovation clearly aims to initiate a return to this architectural and social cohesion, despite the geographical distribution of the houses. Although many minor alterations, without any consequential steps, have allowed the houses to survive, the buildings and materials have reached their life expectancy, their limits of urban integration and habitability. The current renovation allows the remarkable elements to be welded together and to ensure the durability of this Art Deco/Modern heritage, while fitting out housing that is more in line with our current ways of living. Each typology respects the original architectural identity - starting with the façades and the nobility of the materials - while proposing unbridled interior scenarios, more comfortable and able to accommodate families of 2 to 8 people. The original obsolete typologies, in three separate levels and with shops on the ground floor, are reinterpreted to create housing with a majority of large 3-4 bedroom duplex flats and some 1 bedroom flats.
Today, these 11 corner houses, although geographically isolated, can once again be associated with a coherent ensemble.
