Fleur de Marie
Fleur de Marie
The area Fleur de Marie is a residential district next to Willemstad. Today it is characterized as a neighborhood with social challenges, with many outdated homes and an overrepresentation in the crime rates. But if you look beyond these aspects you also see a neighborhood with a rich history and a strong sense of community.
It is one of the self-build neighborhoods on the island. What started with about 16 wooden houses, grew into a large working-class neighborhood with about 2,500 residents. A neighborhood that is characterized by the strong social cohesion within the mixed migrant community that settled there. Residents were from St. Maarten and St. Eustatius, Santo Domingo, Antigua, Puerto Rico and Venezuela.
Archaeological finds show that the first residents mainly came from the middle and lower classes and possibly also enslaved and/or free blacks in the 19th century.
Context
The district was created as a response to the arrival of the Shell oil refinery on Curaçao in 1917, which brought about accelerated demographic and economic development. In about 30 years, there was a large influx of migrant workers. During this period, the Curaçao population grew enormously, from 34,000 around 1915 to roughly 90,000 in 1946. This put great pressure on the housing stock. The material wealth that Shell brought with it was not evenly distributed over the island or among people that worked there.
For the (mostly) Dutch-born senior staff, the refinery built homes in Emmastad, Julianadorp and Biesheuvel. For the Dutch workers, homes were built on Bapanja and Groot-Kwartier. The non-Dutch workers were housed by Shell in sheds and camps (Asiento, Valentijn, Suffisant) and separated by nationality.
Origin
Fleur de Marie arose out of necessity as a self-build neighborhood, against the slope of Scharloo – the former plantation. For 3.50 Antillean guilders per month (approx. 1.25 euros or dollars) the workers of Shell could rent a plot of land on which they could build their own homes.
Partly because of the steep slopes, the district developed (largely) unstructured. In the beginning, mainly wooden houses (kas di tabla) were built, with or without flattened kerosene cans that served as a protective layer (kas di bleki) and a roof consisting of corrugated iron sheets. Eventually, (coral) stone houses were also built, for example along the Bargestraat.
What started as providing for one’s own housing needs, turned into a rich self-build tradition and culture. People not only designed their houses but also their lives, in which their housing aspirations, self-reliance and self-definition were expressed. During the construction of the Juliana Bridge in the 1960s, more than half of the houses on Fleur de Marie were demolished. After construction, roughly a quarter of the original buildings remained.
Developments
Since 2000, Fleur de Marie has been on the list of districts that the local government wants to improve. The neighborhood is now on the eve of a large-scale development by owner Stichting Monumentenzorg Curaçao. Lyongo architecture is working on a Masterplan to develop the neighborhood in a healthy way, while leaving room for existing residents and the characteristics of the existing buildings.
Prior to this urban development plan, Stephanie van Heijningen (social-cultural and behavioral researcher) conducted research on behalf of the Social Design Foundation into which social aspects are important for the development of this area. She has investigated which (heritage) values the area possesses and what the socio-historical context is, to determine the character of the neighborhood. While working on the Masterplan, the (urban) designer takes these results into account to preserve the soul of the district.
Read the publication
This research was published in a Dutch research-paper to make it available for (part of the) residents of Fleur de Marie.
Fleur de Marie
Fleur de Marie is a residential area next to Willemstad. Today it is characterized as a neighborhood with social challenges, with many outdated homes and an overrepresentation in the crime rates. But if you look beyond these aspects you also see a neighborhood with a rich history and a strong sense of community.
It is one of the self-build neighborhoods on the island. What started with about 16 wooden houses, grew into a large working-class neighborhood with about 2,500 residents. A neighborhood that is characterized by the strong social cohesion within the mixed migrant community that settled there. Residents were from St. Maarten and St. Eustatius, Santo Domingo, Antigua, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. Archaeological finds show that the first residents mainly came from the middle and lower classes and possibly also enslaved and/or free blacks in the 19th century.
Origin
The district was created as a response to the arrival of the Shell oil refinery on Curaçao in 1917, which brought about accelerated demographic and economic development. In about 30 years, there was a large influx of migrant workers. During this period, the Curaçao population grew enormously, from 34,000 around 1915 to roughly 90,000 in 1946. This put great pressure on the housing stock. The material wealth that Shell brought with it was not evenly distributed over the island or among people that worked there.
For the (mostly) Dutch-born senior staff, the refinery built homes in Emmastad, Julianadorp and Biesheuvel. For the Dutch workers, homes were built on Bapanja and Groot-Kwartier. The non-Dutch workers were housed by Shell in sheds and camps (Asiento, Valentijn, Suffisant) and separated by nationality. Fleur de Marie arose out of necessity as a self-build neighborhood, against the slope of Scharloo – the former plantation. For 3.50 Antillean guilders per month (approx. 1.25 euros or dollars) the workers could rent a plot of land on which they could build their own homes. Partly because of the steep slopes, the district developed (largely) unstructured. In the beginning, mainly wooden houses (kas di tabla) were built, with or without flattened kerosene cans that served as a protective layer (kas di bleki) and a roof consisting of corrugated iron sheets. Eventually, (coral) stone houses were also built, for example along the Bargestraat.
What started as providing for one’s own housing needs, turned into a rich self-build tradition and culture. People not only designed their houses but also their lives, in which their housing aspirations, self-reliance and self-definition were expressed. During the construction of the Juliana Bridge in the 1960s, more than half of the houses on Fleur de Marie were demolished. After construction, roughly a quarter of the original buildings remained.
Developments
Since 2000, Fleur de Marie has been on the list of districts that the local government wants to improve. The neighborhood is now on the eve of a large-scale development by owner Stichting Monumentenzorg Curaçao. Lyongo architecture is working on a Masterplan to develop the neighborhood in a healthy way, while leaving room for existing residents and the characteristics of the existing buildings.
Prior to this urban development plan, Stephanie van Heijningen (social-cultural and behavioral researcher) conducted research on behalf of the Social Design Foundation into which social aspects are important for the development of this area. She has investigated which (heritage) values the area possesses and what the socio-historical context is, to determine the character of the neighborhood. While working on the Masterplan, the (urban) designer takes these results into account to preserve the soul of the district.
Read the publication
This research was published in a Dutch research-paper to make it available for (part of the) residents of Fleur de Marie.
Read the publication
Fleur de Marie
Fleur de Marie is a residential area next to Willemstad. Today it is characterized as a neighborhood with social challenges, with many outdated homes and an overrepresentation in the crime rates. But if you look beyond these aspects you also see a neighborhood with a rich history and a strong sense of community.
It is one of the self-build neighborhoods on the island. What started with about 16 wooden houses, grew into a large working-class neighborhood with about 2,500 residents. A neighborhood that is characterized by the strong social cohesion within the mixed migrant community that settled there. Residents were from St. Maarten and St. Eustatius, Santo Domingo, Antigua, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. Archaeological finds show that the first residents mainly came from the middle and lower classes and possibly also enslaved and/or free blacks in the 19th century.
Origin
The district was created as a response to the arrival of the Shell oil refinery on Curaçao in 1917, which brought about accelerated demographic and economic development. In about 30 years, there was a large influx of migrant workers. During this period, the Curaçao population grew enormously, from 34,000 around 1915 to roughly 90,000 in 1946. This put great pressure on the housing stock. The material wealth that Shell brought with it was not evenly distributed over the island or among people that worked there.
For the (mostly) Dutch-born senior staff, the refinery built homes in Emmastad, Julianadorp and Biesheuvel. For the Dutch workers, homes were built on Bapanja and Groot-Kwartier. The non-Dutch workers were housed by Shell in sheds and camps (Asiento, Valentijn, Suffisant) and separated by nationality. Fleur de Marie arose out of necessity as a self-build neighborhood, against the slope of Scharloo – the former plantation. For 3.50 Antillean guilders per month (approx. 1.25 euros or dollars) the workers could rent a plot of land on which they could build their own homes. Partly because of the steep slopes, the district developed (largely) unstructured. In the beginning, mainly wooden houses (kas di tabla) were built, with or without flattened kerosene cans that served as a protective layer (kas di bleki) and a roof consisting of corrugated iron sheets. Eventually, (coral) stone houses were also built, for example along the Bargestraat.
What started as providing for one’s own housing needs, turned into a rich self-build tradition and culture. People not only designed their houses but also their lives, in which their housing aspirations, self-reliance and self-definition were expressed. During the construction of the Juliana Bridge in the 1960s, more than half of the houses on Fleur de Marie were demolished. After construction, roughly a quarter of the original buildings remained.
Developments
Since 2000, Fleur de Marie has been on the list of districts that the local government wants to improve. The neighborhood is now on the eve of a large-scale development by owner Stichting Monumentenzorg Curaçao. Lyongo architecture is working on a Masterplan to develop the neighborhood in a healthy way, while leaving room for existing residents and the characteristics of the existing buildings.
Prior to this urban development plan, Stephanie van Heijningen (social-cultural and behavioral researcher) conducted research on behalf of the Social Design Foundation into which social aspects are important for the development of this area. She has investigated which (heritage) values the area possesses and what the socio-historical context is, to determine the character of the neighborhood. While working on the Masterplan, the (urban) designer takes these results into account to preserve the soul of the district.
Read the publication
This research was published in a Dutch research-paper to make it available for (part of the) residents of Fleur de Marie.
