A large part of this former house of correction in Vilvoorde had already found a new use when I visited. Only a small section of the complex remained unrenovated.
There, you could clearly see the conditions in which people had once been confined. The cells measured less than two by two metres. There was no fixed bed or sanitary provision.
Life in captivity is never pleasant. In these small spaces, the air and daily living conditions must also have been particularly difficult.
The brick vaults and heavy passageways convey the scale of the old complex. On the staircase, the contrast between open space and enclosed sections is considerable. Exactly what conditions were like in a particular period requires historical sources; you cannot deduce that from one empty cell. The photographs therefore focus on the surviving building, without attributing every trace of decay to former imprisonment.
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