Memorial garden for the victims of Dutroux - a gathering place for the inhabitants of the region

The City Of Charleroi has recently created a memorial garden to pay tribute to Julie, Mélissa, Sabine, Laetitia, An and Eefje. A project by the architects of RESERVOIR A, the landscape designers of Carbonifère and the artist Christophe Terlinden in collaboration with the Charleroi Bouwmeester and in consultation with the parents of the victims of Dutroux. The generous design, commissioned by Charleroi City Council, envisions a space where everyone feels welcome.

Building the ineffable 
Between 1995 and 1996, the city of Charleroi was the setting for a sordid tragedy that shattered and marked forever the lives of several families whose girls were abducted. The unspeakable acts suffered by Julie, Mélissa, Sabine, Laetitia, An and Eefje shocked a whole neighbourhood and shook the whole country. As walls remain silent witnesses, it was necessary that the space also be given a restorative role. The architects of RESERVOIR A, the landscape designers Carbonifère and the artist Christophe Terlinden, in collaboration with the Charleroi Bouwmeester and in consultation with the parents of the victims, have made it possible to build the ineffable and to enable the metamorphosis of this space.Today the space is coming back to life thanks to a memorial site, a wonderful garden, between the earth and the sky, which makes room for colour, softness and light.

A difficult urban context 
The memorial garden is located in Marcinelle, on the south-eastern edge of the city centre, between Avenue de Philippeville and Rue des Damzelles, which leads to the city’s Grand-Place. The site and in particular the Avenue de Philippeville segment have obviously been impacted by the sinister tragedy that unfolded there and by the years of desolation that followed. When the houses at 128 and 124 Avenue de Philippeville, purchased by the City of Charleroi, were razed in 2022, an area of approximately 250 m2 was freed up with the aim of creating a memorial garden. In addition to the rehabilitation of these plots of land, the project includes the renovation of the roadway along the garden in order to change the image of the district in a sustainable way.

A garden that provides solicitude and concern
By adopting a sensitive approach to space, architecture can be benevolent, mindful of the living environment. Facing the railway tracks, the rehabilitation at the corner of Avenue de Philippeville and Rue des Damzelles is intended to soothe memories and to usher in a renewal to give the area a lighter image. The memorial garden contributes to the landscaping and urbanistic enhancement of the razed buildings and the surrounding streets. It tends to generate a space that provides solicitude and concern. These two terms fall under the term of care. In 1990 two American political philosophers, Joan Tronto and Berenice Fischer, proposed this beautiful definition: « On the most general level, we suggest that care be viewed as a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our world so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, our selves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web. ». 

The authors of the project have shown restraint in the way they have conceived and built this space so that everyone feels welcome, while at the same time only allowing viewers the possibility of enjoying this generous garden visually. The height of the wall surrounding the garden ensures that passers-by are kept at a distance from the memorial part of the project in order to preserve the serenity and cleanliness of the place.

Architecture rich in symbols
Initially, the parents of the victims did not want the house of Dutroux to be destroyed, they wanted to turn it into a memorial. After mutual agreement, it was decided to demolish the houses to make way for a memorial garden. Protected by a high retaining wall, the memorial garden cannot be entered. The edge running around the entire perimeter of the project has a constant width of 93 cm. Beyond this protective surrounding wall, the garden rises and takes the form of a tumulus. An alcove with a specific orthogonal design has been directly integrated into the brick retaining wall. It reinforces the memorial purpose of the site. This discreet recessed element, built into the continuity of the wall, makes it possible for visitors to pay tribute, to deposit a flower or candle. Everyone is free to deposit something in a respectful manner. The memorial garden and the public space are lit by the existing lamppost based on a proposal by the artist Christophe Terlinden. The light has been renovated and reinstalled on a new post at the intersection of the roads. The orientation of the light source covers the road and the flower bed, while a specific lighting design within the garden highlights the trees. 

Materials that produce contrasts 
The project features two large sections of wall and their buttresses which ensure the stability of the party walls exposed during the demolition work. The recessed placement of the buttresses in relation to the corners at the edge of the building minimizes the presence of corners in the public space. This attention to layout gives these two walls the status of a façade in their own right that protects the densely planted tumulus. The authors of the project chose to use the materials for what they are. In this project, the white glazed brick reflects the light, even on gloomy days. The floor covering is made of terracotta paving stones (206 x 51 x 85 mm), close to the size of the brick used for the masonry, in order to establish a link, a measure that again lends uniformity to the intervention. The colour of the paving stone used is an anthracite-brown grey with a shade of red, thus recalling the appearance of the façades of the district. 

« We chose to use the materials for what they are. In this project, the white glazed brick reflects the light, even on gloomy days. The floor covering is made of terracotta paving stones, close to the size of the brick used for the masonry, in order to establish a link, a measure that again lends uniformity to the intervention. » Julien Dailly, architect associé RESERVOIR A

Delicate flora to change the landscape
The tumulus thus offers the inhabitants a green space, colourful vegetation throughout the year that varies with the seasons. The plant species were chosen with care by Carbonifère’s landscapers in collaboration with Charleroi Bouwmeester. White, pink and mauve flowers populate a carpet that is always green. The floral and vegetal panel includes local and more exotic species, including three trees: a Davidia involucrata (commonly known as the handkerchief tree), a pink Japanese dogwood, and a Lamarck serviceberry. The flower bed contains various bulbs, including narcissuses and perennials.

A reinterpreted mural intervention
For a long time, a fresco ornamented the panels covering the entire façade of the house of Marc Dutroux, now demolished. It showed local inhabitants a hopeful image of a child on the move, free and serene, with a kite flying in the air. This illustration has entered the collective consciousness of the inhabitants of Charleroi. In the project, a reinterpreted version of this existing image by the artist Christophe Terlinden, has been integrated into one of the party walls. He did its scaling on the façade wall and its realization on the enamelled bricks before work on the site began. His involvement goes beyond this mural intervention, however, as Christophe Terlinden helped to design the symbolic elements such as the alcove and the lighting as well as the initial morphology of the project – its height and geometry.

Team:
Client: City of Charleroi
Architects: RESERVOIR A in collaboration with Charleroi Bouwmeester (CB)
Stability: GEI
Landscape Designer: Carbonifère
Artist: Christophe Terlinden
Photography: Marie-Noëlle Dailly