Area of Batavia

At the end of the First World War, there was a serious lack of housing in Roeselare because of the widespread destruction. To alleviate the shortage, Bataviawijk, Belgium's first 'garden neighbourhood', was built.

The first garden neighbourhood in Belgium
On returning home at the end of the First World War, refugees from Roeselare often encountered a scene of devastation. For that reason, De Brocqueville, the Minister of the Interior, decreed on 1 August 1919 that a completely new housing estate should be built in Roeselare: the Bataviawijk. The streets of the new neighbourhood were named after places where many refugees from Roeselare had been taken in at the end of the First World War, such as Lier, Wetteren and Geel.

The 'garden neighbourhood', a new way of living
The garden neighbourhood concept arose at the end of the 19th Century in Great Britain. Architects designed a new housing concept, focusing on healthy living conditions. The intention of the garden neighbourhood was to offer less well-off workers good-quality but affordable housing. Moral considerations also played a role in the design of the estate: there were no pubs or other places of urban recreation. The emphasis was on bourgeois family life: a pleasant home with a vegetable garden would, after all, encourage workers towards 'good family values and thrift'.

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