In Brussels, the home of surrealism, city officials have given their blessing to rename a street in homage to one of René Magritte’s best-known paintings.

Ceci n’est pas une rue (This is not a street) is inspired by The Treachery of Images, painted in 1929 by the Belgian artist, who lived in Brussels for decades.

It was one of nearly 1,400 suggestions made by the public in response to an initiative to generate interest in a regeneration project in a former industrial district in the north of the city.

René Magritte’s 1929 painting, La Trahison des Images, ceci n’est pas une pipe. Photograph: Ian Langsdon/EPA

Eschewing famous Belgians of the past, many of the winning names are whimsical or poetic, or evoke the quirkiness of the Belgian capital. In a rejuvenated park, pedestrians and cyclists will be able to follow Better World Path, or Happiness Way. Visitors may end up on Place des choukes – chouke, “little cabbage”, translates as a warmer version of “darling”. A final stop might be Dreams Drive, euphonious Drève des rêves or Dromendreef. As Brussels is a bilingual city, all street names are in French and Dutch.

The competition was held amid growing calls for European cities to recognise women in the naming of public places. In Paris, feminist campaigners want new metro stations named after French women, while, this month, activists unofficially renamed Dutch streets after women, after finding only 12% bore female names in big cities.

A new neighbourhood is being built around the Tour & Taxis industrial area in Brussels. Photograph: Simon Schmitt - wwww.globalview.be

Belgian citizens were given the chance to name 28 streets, alleys, squares and walkways that make up the former industrial zone of Tour & Taxis. The final names were chosen by a jury comprising city officials, local heritage experts and property developer Extensa, which bought the vast derelict site from the Brussels capital region in 1999.

Once a railway station and inland port, the district was a maze of warehouses, customs buildings and post and telegraph offices. By the early 1990s the area had fallen on hard times: lorry transport had rendered rail freight lines obsolete, while the introduction of a European customs union and harmonisation of standards drastically reduced incoming goods.

Kris Verhellen, chief executive of Extensa, said the company would never have dared to make some of the suggestions. “For me, it was quite a surprise that there were quite a lot of soft values in the street names that were proposed.

“I thought it was very moving because we are so used to being so negative about this city.”

The Brussels street that will be called Ceci n’est pas une rue will run the length of the railway sheds in the former industrial zone. Photograph: Jennifer Rankin

Two Belgian women will also be honoured as a result of the public vote. The pioneering filmmaker Chantal Akerman, who died in 2015, will have a street named after her. And Belgium’s first female doctor, Isala Van Diest, who battled years of sexism from the late 19th century Belgian medical establishment, will also lend her name to a street.

Verhellen said one of the choices “didn’t make us popular with the collective of women that is campaigning for more women’s names”, which was also represented on the selection jury.

Place des grands hommes, he said, was correctly translated in a gender neutral way as “great people” rather than “great men”. He said the name of this square was proposed by a woman, who had explained, “We are all des grand hommes”.



While most of the streets will be private, the larger ones leading to the site will be public. But tourists looking for a selfie will have to wait a few years, as most will not be redeveloped until 2020.



Not every suggestion made the cut. The jury rejected Rue du gentrification – an implicit criticism that the development company rebuffed, saying that up to 25% of the newly-built apartments was social housing.



Celebrities with little connection to Belgium were also rejected. But proposals based on Belgian specialities proved a winning choice: old shuntings and sideways in the railway station will be renamed after Belgian foods, such as kriek (cherry beer), endives, pralines and frites.



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• This article was amended on 28 August 2018. An earlier version translated Dreams Drive as “Drèves des rêves”. This has been corrected to the singular “Drève”.