Abstract

The industrialization of Leuven in the 19th century was accompanied by rising tensions between social classes. The results of these tensions are still visible in Leuven throughout its architecture and spatial structure, as well as the still-existing networks and organizations founded at that time to deal with those tensions. In this lecture we will use these tensions and their material manifestation to illustrate sociological concepts in the course, such as rationalisation, social inequality and classes, the rise of the bourgeoisie and their ethics and aesthetics, the (self-)organisation of the labor class and their relation to State-power, corporatism and the development of the welfare state, etc.