ROCKERILL

In 1832, the blacksmith Puissant d'Agimont and the industrialist Thomas Bonehill founded this factory which would give its letters of nobility to the steel industry of Charleroi, on a piece of land called La Providence. Located between the Sambre and the Charleroi-Brussels-Antwerp Canal, it was strategically close to the Marchienne-Malinnes railway line and an important mining site. Destroyed during the First World War, the old Forges de la Providence were rebuilt in the aftermath of the conflict and continued to operate at full capacity before being absorbed by the Cockerill-Sambre group and the industrial decline of the 1980s. Then in 2005, a collective of artists and friends reclaimed the immense industrial wasteland to set up concert halls, a metalwork cooperative, artists' studios and created the label Rockerill Records. Recognizable by its orange facade, the entrance to the site is like a lighthouse in the middle of a rather dark post-industrial environment!

Agenda. Various disciplines are programmed here every week: concerts (every Saturday), electro evenings, plastic and digital arts, theatre, cinema, dance, street arts... From the sharpest to the widest audience... such as, for example, a micro-brewery festival (Sunday Beer Sunday) set up since 2017. The vibrant Rockerill cultural centre also attracts alternative tourism, especially in summer during its industrial aperitifs, which even attract travellers passing through Gosselies airport.