Victor Bourgeois - Modernity, Tradition & Neutrality

I WA N S T R AU V E N

M O D E R N I T Y, TRADITION & NEUTRALITY

with photographs by Maxime Delvaux

nai010 publishers

introduction 7

In Search of Victor Bourgeois

chapter 1

29

‘Alright, Ruins then . . . Otherwise, Something Modern’

Formative Years 1914–1922

chapter 2

59

‘Being Flat Broke is the Salvation of Architecture’

The Cité Moderne and the Architecture Debate in Belgium During the 1920s

chapter 3

117

‘The Rationalization of Architecture’

Victor Bourgeois and the Modern Movement

chapter 4

193

‘Urban Planning Adjusts the Space to the Social Progress’

Urban Planning Theorization and Practice

chapter 5

241

‘A Good Dome is Often a Bad Cupola’

Bourgeois’ Postwar Work

chapter 6

295

‘Inventing the difference’ Victor Bourgeois and the Myth of the Belgian Bauhaus

Education at the La Cambre Institute

329

Works 1919–1962

465

Bibliography

472

Index

introduction

IN SEARCH OF VICTOR BOURGEOIS

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M O D E R N I T Y, T R A D I T I O N & N E U T R A L I T Y

A WELL-KNOWN UNKNOWN, AVOIDED BUT UNAVOIDABLE In the historiography of twentieth-century architecture, Victor Bourgeois is considered a key figure in Belgian modernism. Many authors refer to his contribution to the genesis of the Modern Movement, citing the avant-garde magazine 7 Arts, founded by Victor Bourgeois, and projects such as the internationally renowned housing project Cité Moderne, realized between 1922 and 1925. Bourgeois was the only Belgian architect to have built a house at the Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart, which subsequently earned him a position on the international scene. He gained this position particularly in the context of the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (International Congresses of Modern Architecture – CIAM), the third congress of which he organized in Brussels in 1930. But in spite of a reputation that spread beyond the boundaries of the Belgian scene, Bourgeois remains largely unknown.

So far only outline publications or limited studies have been devoted to Bourgeois’ built and written oeuvres; two concise monographs were published before his death in 1962, including an overview compiled by the architect himself with an introduction by Pierre-Louis Flouquet in 1952,B and a short study by Georges LinzeC with a list of his projects and an extensive bibliography published in 1959. More than ten years later, in the spring of 1971, the Archives d’Architecture Moderne (Archives for Modern Architecture – AAM) published the first retrospective catalogue to accompany an exhibition devoted to Bourgeois.D With contributions by Robert L. Delevoy, Maurice Culot and Pierre Bourgeois, this publication is undoubtedly the best introduction to the architect’s personality and work, and in many respects it is a homage to Bourgeois. This was even more directly the intention of the booklet that was published by the Académie Royale de Belgique more than a quarter of a century later, in 1998, on the occasion of the centenary of Bourgeois’ birth, a tribute consisting of a number of accounts by his former students.E In spring 2005, I curated an exhibition at the Centre International pour la Ville, l’Architecture et le Paysage (CIVA) in Brussels, devoted to the Bourgeois brothers and organized by the Fondation pour l’Architecture.

This exhibition showed for the first time an extensive selection of projects and documents, together with several paintings from Pierre Bourgeois’ collection. However, the accompanying catalogue only cited a limited number of the exhibited projects with some short descriptions. For budgetary reasons, it was not possible for this catalogue to be more exhaustive than the previous publications.F Remarkably, and despite the lack of proper monographs, Bourgeois’ name continues to come up in almost every study of modern architecture in Belgium, and to a lesser extent in books on the international development of the Modern Movement. More than his contemporaries Huib Hoste,

1. Pierre-Louis Flouquet, Victor Bourgeois: architectures 1922–1952 (Brussels: Editions Art et Technique, 1952).

2. Georges Linze, Victor Bourgeois, Monografieën over Belgische kunst (Brussels: Elsevier, 1959).

3. Robert Delevoy, Maurice Culot and Pierre Bourgeois, Victor Bourgeois (Brussels: AAM, 1971).

4. Paul-Emile Vincent et al., Hommage à Victor Bourgeois à l’occasion du centenaire de sa naissance (Brussels: Académie royale de Belgique, 1998).

5. Iwan Strauven, Les frères Bourgeois: architecture et plastique pure (Brussels: AAM, 2005).

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Postal Cheque Building in Brussels, 1937–1949

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The hypothesis that underlies the research for this study is that Bourgeois’ writings and buildings together form a coherent whole. Regardless of the subtlety with which the critics have created the present complex image of Bourgeois, the intention in this book is to take it as a given that we can consider his work an oeuvre that is characterized by an approach and a questioning that fundamentally remained the same throughout all the stylistic turns in his work. In this regard we follow the indications given by his brother Pierre who, as we shall see further on, was not a bystander when he wrote in 1971 that ‘certain people tend to compare the young Bourgeois with the mature or ageing personality. It was essentially the same struggle from 1919 to 1962. In 1971, similar causes elicit identical reactions.’GE The irony of the story is that it is precisely the intention behind the ambivalent image outlined above, which was an attempt ‘to do justice to Bourgeois’, that hinders a subtle and richer interpretation of his approach to architectural and urban planning. A perspective that concentrates too much on style will bring into focus his avant-garde work without detecting the themes that later reach their full potential in his more mature projects.

Those who devote the necessary attention to Bourgeois’ early work as a whole will there too discover examples of his less refined approach. Culot’s comment on the ‘mediocrity’ of Bourgeois’ oeuvre ‘as a whole’ has to be taken seriously, even when regarding his early work.

It is important to clarify that regardless of the ambivalent perspective projected in architectural histories, there is no intention here to rehabilitate or paint a glorious picture of Bourgeois the architect. I am convinced that Bourgeois’ mediocrity in architectural history is often too easily confused with his own restrained design attitude and his respect for urban planning, an attitude that links him to architects such as André Lurçat.

The question dealt with in an architectural monograph is in itself always the same. In the first place it looks for the specific qualities of the architect in question. Focusing attention on one particular person and studying his architecture and theories is an attempt to bring to light the similarities and differences, the connections and points of divergence between him and his contemporaries. At the heart of these questions lies the strategy of the protagonist, the way the architect has approached architecture in the broadest sense of the term. At the same time, monographs are outstanding contributions to the general history of architecture. As Geert Bekaert emphasized,GF they must be considered as a sort of prism through which an event can be illuminated in an original way. In any case, an approach to history from this angle offers the advantage not only of being confronted with certain concepts abstractly, but also of seeing them at work in the constantly changing force-field between tradition and renewal, cliché and originality, subjection and resistance.

The point of departure for this study is the substantive unity of Bourgeois’ approach that emerges from his sustained questioning of the social

64. Pierre Bourgeois, ‘Coupes et perspectives’, in: Robert Delevoy, Maurice Culot and Pierre Bourgeois, Victor Bourgeois (Brussels: AAM, 1971), p. 38.

65. Geert Bekaert, ‘Inleiding’, in: Herman Stynen, Stedebouw en gemeenschap: Louis Van der Swaelmen (1883–1929), bezieler van de moderne beweging in België (Liège: Mardaga, 1979), p. 4.

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relevance of architecture. Did his social involvement and commitment actually bring about a formal difference in his architectural designs? How did he give concrete form to the relationship between social commitment and architecture? Throughout his career, Bourgeois (alongside his brother, the poet and man of letters Pierre Bourgeois) tries to give substance to the social element in architecture. In this study, which was carried out primarily through his theoretical writings, Bourgeois appears to have been aware at an early stage of the limits and contradictions between social commitment, the artistic avant-garde and modern architecture. This awareness, together with the changing political situation in Belgium that restricted the work of modernist architects to the design of individual homes, made Bourgeois’ main professional interest shift from architecture to urban design and planning.

Throughout the course of this book the question of how Bourgeois gives a social dimension to modern architecture and to modern urban planning will be raised repeatedly. The successive points of view and shifts of meaning in his vision of architecture are traced on the basis of a close reading of his writings. In this way, an attempt is made to provide an answer to the question of the extent to which Bourgeois engaged with the social dimension, within the scope of the ideological and social order of his day, and how these give shape to his social commitment.

What is specific to Bourgeois is that, well informed as he was by his editorial work for 7 Arts and his international contacts, he nevertheless appropriated prevailing attitudes from the European contemporary architectural scene to form a personal way of thinking about architecture. Although, because of his ‘mediating role’ in CIAM, he might be called one of the promotors of the Modern Movement, his reflections never deteriorated into a dogmatic discourse. On the contrary, precisely at the moment when he acquired the legendary status of ‘modernist of the earliest generation’ in Belgium, in his attitude he appears to have recognized the richness and diversity of the Modern Movement, while still involving tradition in the very broad sense of the word, as a possible reference for architectural design.

We can trace this ‘eclectic’ approach in both his educational project at the La Cambre Institute in Brussels, and even more than has been acknowledged to date, in his architectural and urban-planning practices.

This book consists of six chapters in chronological and thematic order. The first three provide a new view of the young Bourgeois. They deal as systematically as possible with his youth and education before, during and after the First World War, his professional experiences, the construction of the Cité Moderne, the creation of 7 Arts and, finally, his role in the international architectural debate of the 1920s. In the later chapters, thematic lines of questioning are developed in correlation to three areas of work to which Bourgeois devoted his professional attention: architecture, urban planning and architectural education. These threads are linked to issues and themes that already existed in the 1920s and come to their full potential in his later work.

chapter 1

ALRIGHT, RUINS THEN . . .

OTHERWISE, SOMETHING MODERN

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THE BOURGEOIS BROTHERS TEAM It is impossible to outline the course of Victor Bourgeois’ life without involving his brother, younger by just one year, the poet, journalist and filmmaker Pierre Bourgeois. Their lives and collective activities are so intertwined that it would be a perilous task to distinguish their individual shares in each other’s work. However, their common adventure took place primarily in architecture, Victor Bourgeois’ field of action. While Pierre Bourgeois’ intellectual reflection often formed the origin of what they undertook together in the fields of architecture and urban planning, the reverse was by no means the case. Victor exercised virtually no influence on, nor made any contribution to his brother’s work, whether in the areas of journalism, literature or filmmaking.

It seems as if behind the public figure of ‘Victor Bourgeois’ who was involved in numerous lectures, publications and projects (some realized and others not), there lay a double personality; that of Victor and that of Pierre. We shall encounter Victor Bourgeois’ brother at all the pivotal points from the very start of Victor’s career as an architect and as a critic.

This applies to the beginning of Victor’s career in enterprises such as the establishment of the tenants’ cooperative of the Cité Moderne, the wintertime artistic weekly 7 Arts, his appointment as a professor at the La Cambre Institute in 1927, as well as the organization of the third CIAM congress in Brussels. And Pierre was also influential in later initiatives of the 1930s such as the Bruxelles magazine (1932–1933), the Model Station at the world exhibition in Brussels (1935) and even Bourgeois’ professional profile as an urban planner.

The cooperation between the two brothers has never been disclosed in private conversations, but it can be deduced from a number of accounts, from existing archival documents and from biographical facts that Pierre was present at virtually every crucial moment in Victor’s career, and that Victor owed many of his connections and commissions to Pierre. It was thanks to Pierre’s literary friends that Victor was given the chance to build the Cité Moderne. It was through Pierre’s connections at the Université Nouvelle in 1920 that Victor came into contact with Henry van de Velde, who was living in the Netherlands at the time. Even though Victor was barely 29 years old, it was Pierre’s intervention that got him a professorship post at Van de Velde’s La Cambre Institute.

Since Pierre Bourgeois is not as internationally known as his brother, it is somewhat paradoxical that most of the details about Victor’s youth and family background have come to us via the writings on the life and work of his poet brother.B The Bourgeois brothers were born in Charleroi at the end of the nineteenth century, fifteen months apart, Victor on 29 August 1897 and Pierre on 4 December 1898. Their mother’s side of the family, who were deeply Catholic, had French origins and had settled in Dinant.

1. André Doms, Pierre Bourgeois. Une lecture de soixante ans de poésie (Brussels: Maison internationale de la poésie, 1976). This is partly explained by the age that Pierre Bourgeois was to reach. Victor died in 1962 at the age of 65; Pierre in 1976 at the age of 78.

CHAPTER 6: INVENTING THE DIFFERENCE

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On the occasion of the 100th award of a diploma to an architect from Bourgeois’ studio, his ex-students organized a party and presented him with an album with one page per architect, with a portrait, one of their own realizations and a short dedication.

Here we show the pages relating to Jacques Dupuis, Lucien Engels, Charles Vandenhove and Willy Van Der Meeren.

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WORKS 1919 – 1962

Bourgeois was called up for military service. In this project, the volumetric research that Bourgeois would focus on in subsequent years as a selfemployed architect is already apparent.

The bas-relief was designed by Ledel, one of the sculptors who in December 1919 took part in the first exhibition at Le Centre d’Art.

1919

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M O D E R N I T Y, T R A D I T I O N & N E U T R A L I T Y

SHOP WINDOW OF LA PANNE FISHMONGERS

In collaboration with Frans Vanderdrift Location Rue des Fortifications Saint-Gilles, Brussels Status Demolished Documents CIVA: perspective drawing of facade First known project to have come about and to have been implemented in collaboration with Frans Vanderdrift. The design for this shop window illustrates the influence that Josef Hoffmann had on the youngest generation of Brussels-based architects in the years immediately following the First World War. Bibliography • ‘Victor Bourgeois. Charleroi 1897’, 7 Arts 2, no. 30 (20 July 1924), p. 5.

1. See Le Geste 1, no. 1 (1919), p. 33.

Bibliography • ‘Victor Bourgeois. Charleroi 1897’, 7 Arts 2, no. 30 (20 July 1924), p. 5.

Wittamer patisserie

Status Dismantled, furniture not preserved Documents CIVA: two b&w photos Bourgeois and Vanderdrift’s involvement comprised the design of the wooden door frames, the tiles and the bread cabinet. As with the facade of the ‘La Panne’ fishmongers, which was designed at the same time, this design is reminiscent of the Wiener Secession movement.

Bibliography • ‘Victor Bourgeois. Charleroi 1897’, 7 Arts 2, no. 30 (20 July 1924), p. 5.

1920 GRAVESTONE OF VICTOR LAURENT VANDERSMISSEN

Shop window of La Panne fishmongers. Perspective drawing

330

1919 INTERIOR DESIGN FOR WITTAMER PATISSERIE

In collaboration with Frans Vanderdrift Location Place du Grand Sablon Brussels

In collaboration with Frans Vanderdrift and sculptor Dolf Ledel Location Brussels Cemetery, Evere, Brussels Perpetual concession no. 3570 Avenue 12, section 9 Status Poorly maintained, but in original state Documents CIVA: recent b&w photo It was probably Franz Vandersmissen who commissioned this gravestone. He was responsible for the Quand-même, groupe de diffusion littéraireB section of Le Centre d’Art founded by the Bourgeois brothers. This is the final project in the short-lived partnership between Bourgeois and Vanderdrift, which came to an end when Victor

Gravestone of Victor Laurent Vandersmissen

1921 GRAVESTONE FOR BOURGEOIS FAMILY

Location Molenbeek-Saint-Jean Cemetery, Brussels Section 7b, plot 728 Status Original state Documents CIVA: two b&w photos, by Duquenne A few months after the death of her husband Pierre Bourgeois (28 December 1916), Léontine Colin, the mother of the Bourgeois brothers, decided to move from Charleroi to Brussels.

The extremely devout Léontine subsequently purchased a family vault at Molenbeek-Saint-Jean Cemetery, to which she arranged the transfer of the remains of her husband and his first wife, her sister Marie Hortense Bourgeois.

In the design for this family tomb, which was executed five years later, the volumetric study from the preceding project was continued and refined. The bas-relief and inscription were replaced by a recessed cross that was slightly accentuated at the top.

Victor Bourgeois (1897–1962): Modernity, Tradition & Neutrality is published by nai010 publishers (Rotterdam) in association with CIVA (Brussels) and Architecture Curating Practice (Brussels).

This publication was made possible by the generous support of: The Flemish Authorities, URBAN, Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles – Cellule architecture, City of Charleroi, Faculty of Architecture La Cambre Horta, Université libre de Bruxelles, University Foundation and Febelcem.

Text Iwan Strauven Translation Assistance English Gregory Ball Translation Assistance French Patrick Lennon Photography Maxime Delvaux assisted by Adrien De Hemptinne Graphic Design Jurgen Persijn (N.N.) Printing and Lithography Drukkerij Die Keure, Bruges (B) Paper Gardapat Kiara, Maxigloss Publisher Eelco van Welie, nai010 publishers Illustration Credits All archival material © CIVA, Brussels

© 2021 nai010 publishers, Rotterdam.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

For works by visual artists affiliated with a CISAC-organization the copyrights have been settled with Pictoright in Amsterdam. © 2021, c/o Pictoright Amsterdam

Although every effort was made to find the copyright holders for the illustrations used, it has not been possible to trace them all.

Interested parties are requested to contact nai010 publishers, Mauritsweg 23, 3012 jr Rotterdam, the Netherlands, info@nai010.com nai010 books are available internationally at selected bookstores and from the following distribution partners: North, Central and South America: Artbook | D.A.P., New York, USA, dap@dapinc.com Rest of the world: Idea Books, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, idea@ideabooks.nl For general questions, please contact nai010 publishers directly at sales@nai010.com or visit our website www.nai010.com for further information. nai010 publishers is an internationally orientated publisher specialized in developing,producing and distributing books in the fields of architecture, urbanism, art and design. www.nai010.com

Printed and bound in Belgium isbn 978-94-6208-460-5 nur 648 bisac arc000000 / arc006020

This book is a shortened, revised and translated version of a PhD thesis that Iwan Strauven defended at Ghent University on 28 May 2015.

This was the outcome of PhD research conducted jointly at Ghent University and the ULB under the supervision of Mil De Kooning and Judith le Maire.

The research was made possible by the support of the Flanders Fund for Scientific Research and the Architecture Faculty of the ULB. The members of the PhD jury were Stanislas Von Moos, Angelika Schnell, Kersten Geers, Maurice Culot, Pieter Uyttenhove, Victor Brunfaut, Jean-Louis Genard, Rika Devos and Rik Van de Walle.

Special thanks to Pier Vittorio Aureli, Cecile De Kegel, Clarisse d’Hoffschmidt Emma Dumartheray, Françoise Fromonot, Laetitia Gendre, Andrew Leach, Tom Leenders, Géry Leloutre, Roxane Le Grelle, Benoit Moritz, Yaron Pesztat, Anne-Marie Pirlot, Francis Strauven, Christophe Terlinden, Jan Theissen

PICTURE CREDITS All pictures are from the collections of the CIVA in Brussels, except for the following illustrations: Maxime Delvaux for la Cellule architecture: pp. 57, 68–69, 80–87, 140–141, 146–147, 152–153, 184–191, 258–261, 268–271, 276–277, 286–293 p. 21: Bâtir 8, no. 81 (August 1939), p. 362; p. 23: Collection of the City of Ostend; p. 41 (left): Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels. Photo: J. Geleyns - Ro scan; p. 41 (right): Coll. Mu.ZEE, Ostend, www.lukasweb.be – Arts in Flanders; p. 61: Das Werk, no. 9 (September 1925), pp. 257–259; p. 91: 7 Arts 1, no. 1 (June 1922), p. 1; p. 99: National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam; p. 130: 7 Arts 3, no. 18 (5 March 1925), p. 4; p. 131: 7 Arts 3, no. 25 (30 April 1925), p. 1; p. 134: 7 Arts 6, no. 26 (23 September 1928), p. 4; p. 149: 7 Arts 6, no. 11 (22 January 1928), p. 4; p. 165: 7 Arts 6, no. 24 (20 May 1928), p. 1; p. 195 (bottom): La Cité 8, no. 11 (May 1930), p. 175; p. 211: Archives of the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich; p. 213: Savoir et Beauté 12, no. 1 (January 1932), p. 19; p. 247: Coll. Plaizier, Brussels; p. 252: Ghent University Library Archives. Photo: E. Sergeysels; p. 265: Archives et Bibliothèque d’Architecture de l’ULB; p. 309 (top): L’Emulation 53, no. 5 (May 1933), p. 95; p. 309 (bottom): La Cité 11, no. 9 (September 1933), p. 178; p. 311: 7 Arts 6, no. 23 (23 September 1928), p. 3; p. 319 (left): Lucien Engels’ Archives / a&d 50; p. 319 (right): Reyner Banham, Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976), p. 25; pp. 323–326: Archives et Bibliothèque d’Architecture de l’ULB; p. 352 (top): La Cité 4, no. 6 (December 1923), planche 6; p. 356 (bottom): 7 Arts 2, no. 28 (15 May 1924), p. 1; p. 357 (bottom): L’habitation à bon marché 5, no. 3 (March 1925), p. 43; p. 364: Karin Kirsch, The Weissenhofsiedlung. Experimental Housing Built for the Deutscher Werkbund, Stuttgart, 1927 (New York: Rizzoli, 1989), p. 42; p. 372: L’Emulation 49, no. 10 (October 1929), p. 79; p. 373 (bottom): La Cité 8, no. 11 (May 1930), p. 175; p. 374 (bottom): La Cité 8, no. 11 (May 1930), p. 175; p. 376 (bottom): La Cité 8, no. 7 (January 1930), p. 120; p. 387 (top right and bottom): Archives of the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich; p. 398 (top left): Pierre Bourgeois, Monographie de la gare modèle et des transports, Architecture, Industrie, Tourisme (Brussels: 1936), p. 13; p. 399: Pierre Bourgeois, Monographie de la gare modèle et des transports, Architecture, Industrie, Tourisme (Brussels: 1936), p. 10; p. 400 (top): Bâtir 6, no. 53 (April 1937), 1141; p. 403 (top): Bâtir 6, no. 54 (May 1937), p. 1179; p. 405 (top): L’Ossature Métallique, no. 1 (January 1940), p. 23