The 19th century in Brussels: 1878

Not an easy year.

Thomas Edison invented in that year a version of the incandescent light bulb that would change the world.

Architect  Gustave Strauwen, a follower and a colleague of Victor Horta, was born in that year.

In Belgium, King Leopold II sets up the  “Comité d’études du Haut-Congo”.

Plaque in a house buillt by a architect G. Strauwen in St. Gilles

Street sign displaying the year 1878

Plaque displaying the year 1878

Street sign mentioning the year 1878 (E. Bockstael’s first year as major of Laeken)

The interbellum: 1919

World War I is over. In 1919 begins the so called “inter-bellum”, i.e. the period between the two World Wars.  As for 1918 I have been unable to take a picture of a house built in 1919. I nevertheless managed to take some pictures of memorials displaying the year 1919.

The one mentioning the name of Joseph Leo Cardijn, a Belgian priest and cardinal and the founder of the Young Christian Workers, can be found in the façade of house (the rectory?), close to the cemetery of Laeken and the Church of Our Lady of Laeken.

Street named to Georges-Alphonse Moreau. He was major of Anderlecht de 1885 à 1919.

A memorial in the façade of the house where Cardinal Cardijn lived during World War I (French)

A memorial in the façade of the house where Cardinal Cardijn lived during World War I (Dutch)

A memorial displaying the year 1919 (Architect Strauven dies in Haute Savoie, France)

A commemorative plaque signalling the location (1919-1923) of Ukraine’s extraordinary diplomatic mission to Belgium and the Netherlands)