Architecture of Belgium

Belgian architects had been at the forefront of the Neoclassical architecture movement between the mid 18th and 20th centuries. The style enjoyed great popularity in Belgium and several neoclassical masterpieces, including Gembloux Abbey and the Château de Seneffe survive.

In the last quarter of the 19th century, the Belgian architect and furniture designer Gustave Serrurier-Bovy is credited (along with Belgian architects Paul Hankar, Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde) with creating the Art Nouveau style, coined as a style in Paris by Bing.

The Art Nouveau style enjoyed considerable popularity in Belgium until after the First World War. Numerous houses around Belgium in the Art Nouveau style designed by Victor Horta survive (though not his masterpiece, the Maison du Peuple) which are classified as by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Examples of Belgian architecture include the Romanesque Collégiale Saint-Gertrude de Nivelles (1046) and Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Tournai, the Gothic 15th-century Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp and Baroque Brussels Grand Place. Mosan Renaissance style is typical of the architecture within the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. Famous Art Nouveau architects Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde influenced early 20th-century architecture in Belgium and abroad.

Neo-classical architecture
The neoclassical architecture appeared in Belgium at the time of the Austrian Netherlands with the works of the architects Laurent-Benoît Dewez , Jean Faulte , Claude Fisco , Jean-Benoît-Vincent Barré , Barnabas Guimard , Charles De Wailly , Louis Montoyer …

It will experience exceptional longevity in Belgium, perpetuating itself through the French period , the United Kingdom of the Netherlands , the reign of Leopold I , the reign of Leopold II and even the twentieth century.

Origins of neo-classical architecture
Neo-classicism in architecture results from the renewed interest in the architectural forms of Greco-Roman antiquity aroused by the excavations of the sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum in the eighteenth century.

Its spread in Europe was favored by:

the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann who can be considered as the founder of the history of art and archeology as modern disciplines;
the practice of the ” Grand Tour “, a long journey made by the young men of the highest classes of European society, which had the effect of bringing the high society of Northern Europe into contact with ancient art;
the stay in Italy made by many young artists and architects.
Dissemination of the neo-classical style in the Austrian Netherlands
The penetration of the neoclassical style in the Austrian Netherlands began in 1759 under the reign of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria , during the governorship of her brother-in-law Charles Alexander of Lorraine .

This diffusion was favored by certain elements such as:

the stay in Italy by the architect Laurent-Benoît Dewez from 1754 to 1757;
the decision taken in 1774 by the governor Charles-Alexandre de Lorraine to redevelop the site of the former Coudenberg Palace , ravaged by a fire in 1731 and left in ruins for more than forty years, and to entrust the construction from Place Royale and Parc de Bruxelles to two French neo-classical architects, Jean-Benoît-Vincent Barré , who gave the plans for the Place Royale and the Saint-Jacques-sur-Coudenberg Church , and Barnabé Guimard .

The Teresian style
If the neo-classical style is called “Louis XVI style” in France, the one that developed in the Austrian Netherlands is sometimes called “Teresian style”, in reference to the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria .

Eclectic architecture in Belgium
In Belgium , eclectic architecture dominates the architectural landscape of the nineteenth century, shared with neoclassical architecture , until the appearance of Art Nouveau in 1893, with the construction of the Hotel Tassel by Victor Horta .

Dominated by the figures of Jean-Pierre Cluysenaar , Joseph Poelaert and Henri Beyaert , the style presents multiple variants such as eclecticism itself (a style that juxtaposes without rules elements drawn from the entire historical architectural repertoire) , the eclecticism tinged with neo-classicism, the neo-Renaissance Italian and French styles, neoroman, neo-Gothic, neo-Renaissance Flemish, neo-baroque, neo-Tudor, neo-Moorish style, and more. eclecticism tinged with Art Nouveau .

Stylistic orientations
Slightly attached to the neo-classicism imported by the Austrian regime in the eighteenth century, Belgian architecture emancipated under Leopold I and turned to a range of styles:

the neo-Renaissance Italian style , with Jean-Pierre Cluysenaar ( Royal Galleries Saint-Hubert , former market covered Madeleine);
the French neo-Renaissance style , still with Cluysenaar ( Château d’Argenteuil , Royal Conservatory of Brussels );
pure eclecticism , with Joseph Poelaert ( Column of Congress , Courthouse of Brussels );
the neo-Romanesque style , with Louis van Overstraeten ( Royal Church of St. Mary );
a first phase of neogothic style born of a romantic interest for the Middle Ages, with a series of churches built by Joseph Jonas Dumont , not to mention the church of Our Lady of Laeken Poelaert and the Holy Church -Catherine of Brussels (mixture of Gothic elements and French Renaissance);
the neo-Tudor style , with a series of prisons made by Joseph Jonas Dumont , which brings this style back to a trip to England in 1846.
Innovation
If the era is characterized by an imitation of the styles of the past, innovation is nonetheless present!

On the one hand, the desire to improve hygiene and traffic in the busy streets by eliminating innumerable small outdoor markets leads Cluysenaar to innovate by creating covered public buildings, such as covered markets (former covered market of the Madeleine) and the shopping arcades or walkways (Royal Galleries Saint-Hubert).

On the other, new techniques born of industrial progress appear: iron and glass upset architectural practices. Cluysenaar and Hansotte adopt these new construction techniques and apply them respectively to the Royal Galleries Saint-Hubert and the Halles de Schaerbeek .

Art Nouveau in Belgium
Art Nouveau was born in Belgium in 1893, when Victor Horta built the Hôtel Tassel .

The style of Horta is very popular with the upper middle class who, after the Hotel Tassel, he ordered many mansions, then deploys in the sector then developing department stores, before making many emulators.

Belgian art nouveau is also essential in the school architecture with the works of Henri Jacobs then influences several European countries such as France, Germany, the Netherlands and Austria.

Stylistic characteristics

“Floral Art Nouveau” and “Geometric Art Nouveau”
From the start, two different trends emerge:

the trend “Floral Art Nouveau” initiated by Victor Horta for architecture and Raphael Evaluate for the decorative arts, characterized by the famous “line in whiplash”, its sinuous lines inspired by the plant world and its stylized floral motifs, to the abundant decoration (and sometimes excessive as in Gustave Strauven which is not far from the ” Rococo style “) and which is paradoxically not always free from medieval reminiscences (clearly perceptible in Ernest Blerot for example)
the trend “Geometric Art Nouveau” initiated by Paul Hankar for architecture and Gustave Serrurier-Bovy for the decorative arts, characterized by a geometric and abstract decoration, more sober, but so much more modern: through its influence on the geometric current of the Viennese Secession and on the Nieuwe Kunst in Holland, it will lead to Art Deco .
The ornamental palette of Art Nouveau architecture

The Art Nouveau buildings are adorned with a wide variety of ornaments such as:

the sgraffiti whose specialists are Adolphe Crespin , Henri Privat-Livemont and Gabriel Van Dievoet
stone carving, represented by Pierre Braecke , collaborator of Victor Horta
ceramics, beautifully illustrated by Henri Privat-Livemont
wrought iron (balconies, grills …)
Mosaic
stucco

Fine Arts Style in Belgium
In Belgium , the Beaux Arts style refers to the resurgence of eclecticism in architecture during the first third of the 20th century.

Unlike France, the term is not used in Belgium to describe the eclectic architecture of the nineteenth century.

Stylistic characteristics
The Beaux-Arts Belgian style, which succeeds the eclectic architecture of the nineteenth century, incorporates elements of the currents of French architecture of the eighteenth century: classical (Louis XIV), Rococo (Louis XV) and neoclassical (Louis XVI ).

The buildings, characterized by the massive use of the stone of France, present two types of distinct facades:

on one side, facades entirely made of white stone or imitation white stone 3 ,
on the other side, red brick or orange facades incorporating many white stone ornamental elements such as garlands of fruit and flowers.
Typology
The Beaux-Arts style is applied to many homes, whether they are mansions, mansions or large apartment buildings. Some prestigious Brussels avenues such as Avenue Molière have a large number of houses and mansions of this style.

It also finds a large field of application in prestige semi-public buildings, such as hotels, banks and corporate headquarters.

Art Deco Architecture
Art Deco appeared in Belgium immediately after the First World War when Victor Horta began designing the Brussels Palace of Fine Arts in 1919.

Origins of Art Deco in Belgium
At the end of the First World War , the Art Nouveau fades to give way to the architectural styles that will mark the interwar period :

the Beaux-Arts style , denomination given in Belgium to the ultimate avatar of eclectic architecture
Art Deco
modernism
In Belgium, Art Deco results from a double American and Austrian influence:

on the one hand, the influence exerted by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright on Victor Horta who visited the works (as the unitary Temple of Oak Park ) during the two years he spent in exile in the United States during the First World War , from 1916 to 1918;
on the other hand, the influence exerted by Josef Hoffmann and the Viennese Secession via the Stoclet Palace :
on the one hand, some Brussels architects who adhere to geometric Art Nouveau (such as Léon Sneyers , Jean-Baptiste Dewin and Camille Damman )
on the other hand, on the new generation of post-war architects.

Characteristics of Art Deco in Belgium

columns and pilasters inspired by the antique :
facade and interior of the Palace of Fine Arts ( Victor Horta )
facade of the Brewery Park, Oostende (Joseph Van der Banck)
porch and lounge of the Hotel Haerens ( Antoine Courtens )
facade of Electrorail ( Antoine Courtens ) and ” La Magnéto Belge ” (Léon Guiannotte)
large hall of Charleroi city hall ( Joseph André and Jules Cézar )

hammered wrought iron ornaments :
entrance door and stair railing of Hotel Haerens ( Antoine Courtens )
entrance door and windows of the Electrorail seat ( Antoine Courtens )
staircase of the ” Palais de la Mad Song ” ( Antoine Courtens )
Gateway to the George Eastman Dental Institute ( Michel Polak )
stair railings and railings of the grand hall of the city hall of Charleroi ( Joseph André and Jules Cézar) …

geometric reliefs inspired by the ornamental repertoire of the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright:
reliefs crowning the facade of the Palace of Fine Arts ( Victor Horta )
reliefs crowning the façade and corner rotunda of the Hotel Haerens ( Antoine Courtens )
reliefs adorning the facades of the building built by Joseph Purnelle rue Royale 93
reliefs surmounting the pilasters of ” La Magnéto Belge ” ( Léon Guiannotte ) …

corner rotunda capped with a dome :
Palace of Fine Arts ( Victor Horta )
Hotel Haerens ( Antoine Courtens )
“Palace of the Mad Song” ( Antoine Courtens ) …

bas-reliefs, friezes and gilded moldings :
bas-reliefs with African motifs from the Eldorado cinema hall ( Marcel Chabot )
friezes and gilded moldings of the grand hall of the city hall of Charleroi ( Joseph André and Jules Cézar)
ceilings of the Park Brewery, Oostende ( Joseph van der Banck and Fres De Coene )
Dancing Roseland ( Arthur Meuleman )

marbles :
Interior of the Park Brewery, Oostende (Joseph Van der Banck)
facade of the cinema Métropole ( Adrien Blomme )
entrance hall of the “Palace of the Mad Song” ( Antoine Courtens )
large hall of Charleroi city hall ( Joseph André and Jules Cézar)

Marbrite siding according to the method of Arthur Brancart, Verreries de Fauquez :
facade of the Brewery Park, Oostende (Joseph Van der Banck)
entrance hall of the CPAS of the city of Brussels ( Jean-Baptiste Dewin )
street of Russia 9 in Saint-Gilles ( Adrien Blomme )

facades in cimorné :
mainly in rural areas
stained glass
façade and interior of the Brasserie du Parc, Oostende (Joseph Van der Banck)

typography :
façade and interior of the Brasserie du Parc, Oostende (Joseph van der Banck and Fres De Coene)

lamps :
interior of the Park Brewery, Oostende (Joseph Van der Banck and Fres De Coene)

Modernist architecture in Belgium
Modernist architecture (also called modern movement or modernism ) appeared in Belgium in 1919 and developed throughout the 1920s and 1930s, in competition with Art Deco and Fine Arts .

Birth of Modernism and Art Deco
At the end of the First World War , the Art Nouveau fades to give way to the architectural styles that will mark the interwar period :

the Beaux-Arts style , denomination given in Belgium to the ultimate avatar of eclectic architecture
Art Deco
modernism
Art Deco is a style that is addressed to ” a bourgeoisie and a middle class in search of representation “: as such, it resorts to an abundant ornamentation, using without counting the luxurious marbles, the iron ornaments Forged hammered, bas-reliefs, friezes and gilded moldings and even columns and pilasters inspired by the antique.

At the antipodes of Art Deco, modernism turns its back on the architectural traditions of the past, rejects all ornamentation and privileges the function. It can be defined as a set of volumes and surfaces, deserving in some cases the name of cubist architecture. ” Modernism is especially defended by architects who reject the very idea of style and demand that architecture express the aspirations for progress and democracy of an idealized future “.

Note that in Belgium the architect Antoine Pompe is a precursor of modernism since 1910 with the clinic of Dr. Van Neck.

The rise of the 1920s
Modernism took off in Belgium in 1919 with the development of a large number of garden cities , some of which, like the Cité Moderne and the Cité du Kapelleveld, are described as cubists. The concept of garden cities is in particular promoted by architects and urban planners refugees in Holland or England during the First World War and who took advantage of their exile to study the urbanistic solutions applied in these countries.

The leading figure in garden cities in Belgium is undoubtedly the urban planner Louis Van der Swaelmen who supervised the realization of five of them.

Under the influence of the Notre-Dame du Raincy church built in 1922-1923 near Paris by Auguste Perret , Belgium saw then appear from 1923 a series of modernist churches , made of reinforced concrete (Saint-Jean church -Baptist Molenbeek, Church of St. Augustine Forest, Church of St. Suzanne Schaerbeek), brick (Zonnebeke) or a combination of these two materials (Genval).

The 1930s
If, before 1930, Belgian modernist architects were interested in garden cities, but not in towers, ” the situation changed radically in 1930 with the holding in Brussels of the 3rd International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM). Le Corbusier exposes his project of “radiant city” and a consensus is established on the abandonment of the garden-city in favor of the high-rise building as optimal solution to the problem of social housing “.

If modernist apartment buildings appeared in 1928-1929 with Victor Bourgeois’s “Naïlis” building and Marcel Friesmans’ Lunatheather, the figurehead in this area will be Jean-Florian Collin , the founder of Etrimo. .

Modernist – style public buildings only appeared in Belgium in the 1930s, with the flagship of this category being the headquarters of the National Broadcasting Institute , a major work by Joseph Diongre at Flagey Square in Ixelles .

During the 1930s, the modernism is adorned with variations on the theme of transatlantic liners that will earn it the nickname style “liner” : tower evoking the chimney of a liner (like those that dominate the silhouette of the old printing press of the daily newspaper The People , from the former headquarters of the RVS insurance company or the communal house of Evere ), curved balconies similar to railings , masts , flagpoles, portholes , wave movements in the facade, etc. …

Functionalism
After the Second World War , modernism will mutate and engender the functionalism that will dominate the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s: ” It will be necessary to wait for the change of scale introduced by the reconstruction and the equipment of the country after the Second World War so that the Modernism imposes itself by its only economic aspect. But it will then apply to large ensembles and large-scale operations that will reveal its inhumanity and make it lose its poetic dimension “.

Functionalist architecture in Belgium
Functionalist architecture is the style that dominates architecture in Belgium during the 1950s , 1960s and 1970s , alongside monumental architecture .

Heir and continuator of Modernism in Belgium , this style is much criticized for the impact of its cold and unadorned towers on the urban landscape but it has nevertheless given a series of low-rise buildings (high -rise buildings ) of quality like the Head office of the Lambert Bank, the head office of Glaverbel, the headquarters of the CBR (Cimenteries Belges Réunies), the headquarters of the Royal Belgian, the marsh building of the CGER (General Savings and Retirement Fund), the headquarters of Hewlett -Packard, the “Louise / Claus” building or the first SWIFT headquarters in La Hulpe .

During the 1990s and 2000s, some of the high-rise buildings (” high-rise buildings” ), considered unattractive, were updated and adorned with postmodern finery.

Brutalist architecture in Belgium
Brutalist architecture appeared in Belgium in 1960 and developed throughout the 1960s and 1970s, in parallel with functionalist architecture , derived as it did from modernism.

The concrete surfaces that characterize the brutalist architecture are an ideal support for murals , as in Louvain-la-Neuve where they flourish.

In the university campus, there are many paintings such as Frank Pe and Bom’s public whales , C’est la vie and A short history of a great Claude Rahir University , Largo Winch by Philippe Francq and Jean Van Hamme , Qu ‘ is an intellectual? by Roger Somville , Tendre Violette by Jean-Claude Servais , François Schuiten’s Infinite Tower , not forgetting Jean Vilar’s portrait, which decorates the Jean Vilar Theater.

Postmodern architecture
In Belgium, postmodernism in architecture appeared in the late 1970s, as a reaction to modernist and functionalist architecture , with the construction of the “Stephanie 1” building by the Atelier d’architecture de Genval , founded by André Jacqmain. .

It dominates the architecture of office buildings in major cities during the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s.

Contributing factors to the development of postmodernism
Several factors specific to Brussels play a certain role in the development of postmodernism in this city:

first, the desire for a return of beauty in the streets of Brussels after the ravages of Brussels , a term which refers to the urban deterioration of a city delivered to property developers, phenomenon which had to suffer at Brussels era of functionalist architecture: the destruction of the North Quarter razed in the 1960s by the real estate developer Charlie de Pauw who dreamed of erecting a small Manhattan, erection of many towers scattered around the city, without aesthetic value or integration with the urban fabric … This aesthetic aspiration will lead to the facelift of several Brussels skyscrapers, adorned with new postmodern clothes, such as the Madou tower , the tower of the Midi , the finance tower, the AG tower (renamed Bastion Tower) or the Astro tower ;

in addition, the opportunity represented by the presence (precisely) of this North razed Quarter which waited for its re-urbanization during the years 1970 and 1980;

secondly, the development of the European institutions leading to the construction of the seat of the European Parliament (the flagship of postmodernism in Belgium), the Justus Lipsius building , the Belliard street bridge, the headquarters of the European Office the fight against fraud as well as that of numerous “Directorates-General” such as DG Employment, DG Information Society, DG Personnel & Administration, DG Budget …

and finally the development of Flemish institutions in Brussels, which leads the Flemish government not only to invest and renovate historical places in the capital such as the Martyrs’ Square, but also to bring out of the ground brand new buildings adorned with the finery of triumphant postmodernism (buildings “Hendrik Conscience”, “Graaf de Ferraris”, “Noord Building”).

Stylistic trends
Postmodern architecture in Belgium presents, in addition to its main trend, several stylistic variants inspired by neoclassicism , the Viennese Secession , Art Deco and even functionalism.

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