In urbanism, a coron is a historical type of working-class housing found in Northern France and Belgium. Emerging during the Industrial Revolution, corons were a form of low-cost dwelling commonly found in coal mining and steelmaking regions of Wallonia and the Nord-Pas-de-Calais. Originating as a form of vernacular architecture, their design and materials were increasingly upgraded over time and some were even constructed as parts of purpose-built model villages. They can be considered a counterpart of the back-to-back housing found in industrial parts of the United Kingdom.
Over a hundred coron sites are listed as World Heritage Sites in Northern France selected by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).[1]
The term originates from the Walloon language 'coron' (itself from Latin 'cornus' meaning 'corner') denoting the edge or corner of a street and, by extrapolation, a working-class district. The emergence of the corons was instigated in the nineteenth century in metropolitan France’s Northern Departments now constituting the Hauts-de-France region (French pronunciation: [o d(ə) fʁɑ̃s], translating to "Upper France" in English; Picard: Heuts-d'Franche), following the territorial reform of French Regions (2014) from a merger of Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy. The activity was ubiquitous in the towns of the former Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin including Lewarde and the sites.[2]
Different types of corons coexisted. Some represented real advances for the time in terms of protecting inhabitants from cholera outbreaks. Today, successive renovations make corons sought after.