De inplanting van hospitalen (gasthuizen-ziekenhuizen) met klooster in het hertogdom Brabant en in het bijzonder Brussel (XIIe-XXIe eeuw)

Samenvatting

Some Reflections about the Location of Hospitals with Convents in the Duchy of Brabant and Particularly in Brussels (12th-21st century)

This paper attempts a basic survey about the location of specialised health facilities, particularly those in Brussels from the twelfth-twenty-first century. These hospitals have been the object of specific studies in the southern part of Brabant since the foundation of the Belgian Society for the History of Hospitals (1962). As this paper focuses on hospitals with a convent-type community and discusses their architectural heritage after the French Revolution, hospitals in North Brabant, where convents disappeared in the wake of the Reformation and the Eighty Years' War, were not included. In order to identify the hospitals with a convent, a clear definition of the words used (gasthuis, hospital was necessary, and all other types of care facilities were excluded (alms-houses, leper houses, hospitals for pilgrims). Out of several lists of convents, twenty hospitals were selected.

The importance of these healthcare institutions in the urban territory is examined with Brussels as a case study, where all convents make up to ten percent of the area inside the city walls, and the care-related convents more than a third of this percentage. The hospitals themselves amount to one tenth of the convent's area or one percent of the enclosed urban area. Property outside the city walls was (of course) much more significant. The selected hospitals could be considered to be small cities providing for most of their needs on their own. The specific buildings and spaces reflect the variety of activities that occurred within their walls.

The main question of this article relates to the choices made in the wake of the French Revolution of whether to maintain the buildings and spaces in the city centre or to relocate and in both cases, to examine whether old buildings were preserved or destroyed. As it turns out, from the twenty selected hospitals, almost half of the old buildings were more or less preserved and have been considered heritage buildings since the 1930s. Today, six of them are used for cultural activities, and one has even become a hospital museum (Geel).

In conclusion, further research is needed to grasp the interactions between cities and hospitals fully and complete this first survey.