But what was this building used for before being transformed into apartments? To start their investigation, Isabelle and Vincent do not hesitate to ring a neighbor’s house, who explains that he bought his house in 1983, shortly after the bankruptcy of the HMS industry, which produced machines for the ice cream parlors which is located a little further away. far in this street of national ice creams. His house was also occupied by the factory engineers. “When we moved in, people told us that at the time we saw columns of workers coming to work. It was still the glory of Auvelais”reacts Gabriel, the neighbor.
Manufactures followed one another on this well-known street where Saint Gobain, the last representative of the glass industry in Auvelais, closed in 2014. “A little further away, there is Bon Grain, which was called Bon Pain when it was created in 1907”, explains Isabelle Sirjacobs. There too, a small factory chimney is still visible. The non-profit organization ‘Contre vents et tides’ which reconverted the site decided to keep it, although planed, so that the walls continue to reflect the history of the building. “Here, it also tells the story of a neighborhood, since it was on the initiative of the ice cream makers that we created this bread manufacturing factory for the workers.” A way for the company to satisfy the food needs of its workers, while attempting to extend Catholic influence in the region. In 1928, Baron Joseph de Dorlodot published a weekly for the moral education of bakery workers: “L’ouvrier, édition du Bon Pain”. At the time, the Bon Pain distribution van was alongside the rival van of the workers’ cooperative bakery of the Maison du Peuple.
2024-03-05 22:00:55
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