The history of Charleroi in a mapping show by Dirty Monitor.
“Un voyage poétique de l’aube des temps jusqu’à aujourd’hui”.
Broadcast on Saturday, September 9, 2023 at 11pm, during the inauguration of Place Vauban, formerly Place Charles II..
Excerpt from Mapping, a brief history of Charleroi
It’s a little forgotten, but it was a Carolingian, Canon Georges Lemaître, who solved the mystery of the universe’s creation with his theory of the primitive atom, better known as the Big Bang.
A theory that has won over the world’s greatest scientists. I, Charleroi, am linked to the birth of the world.
Of course, it didn’t all happen in a day, and for a long time I was just a grain of sand at the bottom of the ocean. When the ocean receded, lush nature covered the land. Over the millennia, life took on the most astonishing forms, sometimes even the most disturbing.
The first humans then appeared, at first munis of everything. The millennia flew by on life’s grand counter, until the domestication of fire opened the doors. Thanks to fire, man learned to work with iron. And so, many centuries later, the first community settled here on the river bank, where today’s Sambre meets the Eau d’Heure and the Ruisseau du Piéton.
I was first called Charnois, and when the Spaniards took an interest in me around the middle of the 17th century, I was still just a modest village of 350 inhabitants, meadows and fields. Coal was already being mined to fuel the first forges.
In 1666, my destiny changed when the Spanish crown decided to make me a strategic town by building an imposing fortress. The idea was to protect the town from its French neighbor. To tell the truth, the adventure left me with rather painful memories, as my population was evacuated, river traffic paralyzed and the rivers themselves diverted. But on September 3 of that same year, I became a real city under the name of Charleroi, a nod to the little Charles II who became King of Spain a little earlier at the age of 4.
As you can imagine, with such a pedigree, my life wasn’t a smooth ride, and for a long time I was torn between the big boys who were at war trying to divide Europe between themselves. Quite simply, between the time I became a city and Belgium’s independence, i.e. 164 years, I was successively Spanish, French, Austrian and Dutch. Don’t think that the Carolos have been sitting on their hands all this time. On the contrary, I became the heart of an industrious region where trade, transport and industry were booming.
In 1830, independence and the birth of Belgium gave further impetus to this formidable development, driven by the industrial revolution, thanks to the steel, coal and glass industries. My name shone all over the world. And if, a few years later, Belgium became the world’s second-largest industrial nation, I’m proud to claim my share of the credit.
But for the workers, this industrial power was also synonymous with appalling working conditions, an inhuman and overwhelming pace. There was also social misery and daily tragedy in a region that had become a black country because of its polluting factories. The overpopulated corons became overworked. There were great strikes and revolts by a working class that began a long struggle for greater social justice.
But solidarity always pays off in the end, and I became the cradle of new, hard-won social gains. At the dawn of the 20th century, prosperity returned, seemingly eternal; and I became even more beautiful, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors for the 1901 exhibition, some of whose important vestiges are now being restored, like the Zenobe Gramme building.
But the most beautiful adventures can do nothing against the blows of fate. On two occasions, the madness of men threw me into a world of suffering from which I emerged bruised and disfigured. But with a fierce determination to regain the upper hand.
To do so, I was able to count on the massive arrival of workers, often from the sun, like the thousands of Italians who lived in difficult conditions when they disembarked from the train at my home.
It was then that a terrible catastrophe once again plunged the working world into mourning.
In the years that followed, my three flagship industries descended into hell. At the same time, as if to melt away the stubborn fate, 14 neighboring communes decided to join me to form a new entity. That was in 1977, and I was to become Wallonia’s most populous city, with over 200,000 inhabitants.
On September 2, 2016, the announcement of the scheduled closure of the Caterpillar plant in Gosselies, was to be the barley point in a long series of economic dramas. Hard costs or not, Charleroi is a fighter. And where I come from, we’re not in the habit of weeping over our fate. I have no shortage of assets, with my theaters, museums, art-deco buildings, folklore and festive events that have attracted millions of visitors over the decades.
Where I come from, we look after both body and mind, and it’s no coincidence that sport is available in so many disciplines that set the halls and stadiums alight. And in Charleroi, we also know how to make people dream, thanks to comic strips. A spitan kid , as we say here, has managed to conquer the hearts of all children.
If I like to be cheerful and welcoming, I’m also sensitive to the well-being of my inhabitants, who have sometimes paid heavily for certain mistakes of the past. But the future is on the move, and over the last twenty years or so, I’ve embarked on a profound transformation, a renovation designed to make me greener, more attractive and more pleasant to live in.
It all began with the Gosselies aeropole, the jobs of the future and the creation of thousands of jobs in the biotechnology sector. Today, it continues with the campus, an ambitious educational hub designed to offer students training at all levels, from technical and scientific professions to higher and university education.
All of this, anchored in a completely remodeled upper town; it’s often overlooked, but I’m a lady of imposing proportions – no less than 100 km². If I dared to use an original image, I’d say that my navel is the central station, which is currently undergoing a facelift on the banks of the redesigned Sambre. Opposite it, on the other side of the river, the cité des finances and the surrounding land will be home to a complex of offices and housing, enhanced by a marina for the city’s users.
Today, my image is changing, evolving and transforming, and those who disparaged me yesterday are gradually discovering a rejuvenated, dynamic city, free of those old clichés. A city that’s also turned towards cutting-edge technologies, and has just attracted a world leader in satellite manufacturing.
Born out of the Big Bang, thanks to the glory of a visionary astronomer, I’m now turning my attention back to the immense universe that surrounds us.
Now is the time for renewal, with or without artificial intelligence, the tools of the future are in place and the planets are now aligned to reach the constellation of prosperity.
A tribute to those who made Charleroi what it is today.
Looking for a few good addresses in Charleroi?
Discover in this guide”Aimer Charleroi” with 200 addresses.
