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Tour Saint-Albert

Tour Saint-Albert

Package boat style colliery

At the end of 2014, the demolition hammer threatened the modernist concrete mine shaft of Saint-Albert in the village of Péronnes-lez-Binche.

The 63-meter-high tower was built in 1954 in reinforced concrete with the support of the American Marshall Plan, intended to revive the European economy after the Second World War.

In its heyday, the coal mine coughed up 2,000 tons of coal every day, which was treated a few hundred meters away in the Péronnes-lez-Binche coal washing plant, which is now partly renovated.

After fifteen years in operation, the Saint-Albert coal mine closed its doors in 1969.

Save the tower

The municipality of Binche has been considering plans to demolish the tower since 2014. This would free up space for a new neighborhood with 350 homes.

The plans immediately met with protest. Rightly so: the package boat-style tower is an iconic structure. That's why the demolition permit was rejected by the Walloon region in 2015. The tower is still preserved but has yet to be repurposed.

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