Red Luxembourg Exhibition Lays Out New Ecological, Urban Living Alternatives

On Thursday 24 March 2022, Peter Swinnen, guest Professor of Architecture at the University of Luxembourg, and David Peleman, postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Geography and Spatial Planning of the University of Luxembourg, presented the exhibition "Galerie Terres Rouges" and a book titled "Red Luxemboug" as part of the Esch2022 - European Capital of Culture project, at the Kulturfabrik in Esch-sur-Alzette.

Architects Peter Swinnen and Davis Peleman shared their motivation behind the exhibition and the book. Displaying a model of the "Crassier Terres Rouges" landscape under subdued lighting, they explained that the Crassier Terres Rouges is an 80-hectare man-made post-industrial landscape spanning between Luxembourg and France, a former slag heap and now an idle eight to sixteen metre-deep open pit. The cross-border site presented unusual challenges and by taking an alternate approach to not only preserve and build around the current site of the open space, the Red Luxembourg project invites people to imagine various alternatives as future developments, including affordable housing.

About 60 to 80 guests attended this event, many of them architecture students, and took note of the spatial-ecological balance. Françoise Poos, Cultural Programme Director of Esch2022, and Jessika Rauch, Lead PR & Public Affairs of Esch2022, were also amongst the attendees.

Speaking with Chronicle.lu, Peter Swinnen elaborated: "We feel that for a social debate, for an ecological debate and also an economical debate, its important to offer alternatives. What you see here at the exhibition, and in the book, is of course various alternatives [for] how we can live in the near future. Crassier Terres Rouges is a former industrial site, which has been very brutally tackled. Nature is growing there but it is difficult. So it is also a proposal on slow ecology, slow urbanism and also slow economy, to a certain degree. We think architecture can be an introduction to think differently".

Comparing the conceptual Red Luxembourg urban planning with the Esch-Belval site, which is also a post-industrial site and currently under development, into an urban living and work space, Peter Swinnen said: "It is almost amazing to see how quickly Belval was realised. There was of course a certain degree of urgency to develop Belval and certain old buildings were kept as they are. At Crassier Terres Rouges there are no buildings and we propose a slower pace of development. To see how the neighbourhood develops. To see what is needed along the way and not realise everything in one go".

Mr Swinnen felt that urban development, architecture and ecology is about testing on a scale one-to-one and although urban development is generally accepted as extremely fast development, as if this were the best option, he advocated a slow and step-by-step development as an alternative. He agreed that something which grows over a longer period of time will eventually be different from what they propose in this exhibition and the book.

On a similar note, Devid Peleman said: "We talked to a larger group of experts, urban geographers, political ecologists and pedologists (soil experts) to have a look at what are the possibilities for a site like this which is often disregarded as a potential construction site. But we felt it is time [for] another look because we think there is huge potential the way they are at this moment".

"It took us little more than a year and the exhibition and project was to open a public debate on how to deal with large building sites in Luxembourg in future. It is easy to say we have a housing crisis and we have to build a lot, but if we look in a longer perspective, we can also say: can we take time and see what happens and learn from the slow development, before immediately go into action and start building urban housing?", underscored Mr Peleman.

Further discussing the Crassier Terres Rouges in terms of being used as a heap for industrial by-products and waste for a long time, Mr Peleman said: "We try to find out the ecologic value of the soil or the toxic value but it is very difficult to get those files from the governments. It is probably an issue but it is hard to get the data. For this site, we know for a fact that a lot of polluted soil was packed and we assume that it is safe now but cannot say for the whole area".

However, he underlined that since certain unique plant species exist at the site, it also offers an opportunity to look at the former waste-dumping site from an ecological point of view. He argued that often people think of former industrial sites as part of a collective memory for past heritage and history, and more often than not they are the buildings and other ruins. However, there are no buildings at the Crassier Terres Rouges site to preserve as cultural heritage but the specific plants which developed in the acidic soil and under certain specific conditions over the past 50 to 60 years, represent the memory of the industrial past of the site and deserved to be part of the collective memory.

Mr Peleman concluded: "So in saying that, okay, we will not build the whole site and we leave it open, is also a way to safeguard an industrial memory but not through buildings, but through open spaces and vegetation. We think this is a sort of approach which is a bit undervalued and underestimated but really deserves sort of a place in the debate of urban development and what kind of collective memory we want to develop about the industrial past of this region".

Through numerous illustrations, the 232 pages of the Red Luxembourg book encompasses the industrial past, current state and various alternative urban planning options for the Crassier Terres Rouges, co-existing with natural elements and preserving the current ecology.

The Red Luxembourg exhibition is open from 24 March to 20 May 2022, every Wednesday to Saturday from 15:00 to 20:00, at the Kulturfabrik (116 Rue de Luxembourg, L-4221 Esch-sur-Alzette).