Schultz Environment Blog

Environment in a broad sense,transports and energy issues. From my local point of view with a global touch!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008


Jardin Botanique Kruituin Have you been in Brussels and visited the Jardin Botanique Kruituin? The botanical garden was inaugurated in September 1829. At that time it was ponds, copses, fields, vegetable gardens and low lying marshlands in that area. The area for the garden was around 6 hectares. The Iris which was growing along the banks of La Senne became the emblem of Brussels. Since then, the civilisation and growth of Brussels has injured the garden. The state of Belgium promised at the beginning to be the safeguard of the botanical garden, but the opposite has happened. During the 1950:s and onward the infrastructure demand and building of offices etc has decreased the area of the garden. The promise that no buildings should be built near the garden, which would destroy the sense of the garden, has been broken more than once. The noise from the traffic is annoying when you walk in the park and the high buildings only some meters from the fence make a surrealistic impression. Why do these things always happen? Why couldn’t Brussels have kept the green lounge of the garden intact? How come the urbanism cannot preserve a green infrastructure when evolving? Well, I think this historical review at the botanical garden in Brussels could teach us to see the value of green planning in cities for the future.