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Abstract :
[en] In the 50s, the Cité de Droixhe was imagined to offer more than 1000 rental social housing units in Liege (Belgium) in a vast green space. This large modernist complex project also offers various facilities. Among these, a medical-family center is added in order to provide accommodation for the families of poliomyelitis victims (especially children). The medical-family center is part of a larger home care plan that also wants to adapt different floors of the housing units to allow wheelchair access and to bring iron lungs for paralyzed patients.
This historical fact resonates with the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, it has been observed that the health crisis particularly affects women, whereas experts are mainly male. In the 60s, the adaptation of the Droixhe project followed the same pattern. It was thought up mainly by men (doctors, architects and politicians) but was set up to allow family life for the sick and to integrate nursing, which was (and still is) mainly the responsibility of women (mothers and nurses).
This article combines a documentary research in the archives of the architects EGAU, supplemented by a series of interviews with different actors. It questions the role and consideration of women in the adaptation of the project. And also observes how the notion of "care" (Tronto, 2013) was apprehended and translated into the architectural design of this project (Mozziconacci, 2017).
How can we ensure that women are taken into consideration and participate in the design of such projects? How can the construction of the city facilitate or hinder women's daily life (Valvidia, 2018) in times of crisis? Drawing lessons from the past, this article will attempt to answer these questions and aims to outline perspectives for a non-androcentric management of the current crisis.
