Artikelen

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  Visitekaartjes in steen, hout en beton

  The house the architect builds for himself and his family can be considered as a unique,  autobiographical record. Because of the twofold role of being both designer and client, the architect can seize the opportunity to conceive his house as a manifesto, a technological experiment or as a turning point in his career. Moreover, he can also deploy his house as a commercial tool to attract future clients; as a life-size business card which demonstrates his professional expertise and ambitions.

  Research into this specific building type has revealed over 330 architects’ houses built in the Brussels Capital Region between 1830 and 1970. A geographical and chronological analysis showed that many architects used their own home to take part in, or even to anticipate on, evolutions related to the extension of the urban fabric or the development of new architectural styles like art nouveau or modernism.

  To fully grasp the significance of the architect’s house as a specific building type, we critically reflect on the characteristics that distinguish this project from other buildings. As such, we have identified five inherent characteristics, namely the position of the house within the oeuvre of the architect, the relationship with the future clientele, the house as working place, how the architect engages his professional network, and finally how the house relates to an earlier or future version. For instance, the ambitions and impact of a house built at the beginning or near the end of the career will be very different. It can also be particularly interesting to see whether the architect uses the house to engage with his clients in a socio-economic or geographical way. Whether and how the architect integrates an architectural studio or office in the house is often also telling for how he practices architecture, as is the way he collaborates with other building actors during the design. And if an architect built several houses for himself, the comparison of these projects generates a deeper understanding of the personal ambitions, professional development and the different space-time contexts in which the architect operates.

  Through the lens of these relationships, we discuss how architects’ houses can evolve into a business card. Therefore, in relation to the architectural and professional aspirations of the architects, especially the role and impact of their own houses on their future portfolio is investigated by means of three case studies; the own house of Henri Van Massenhove (Brussels, 1894), Gustave Strauven (Brussels, 1902), and Luc Schuiten (Overijse, 1976). Each of these houses illustrates a different ambition and tells a unique story embedded in a particular context. Ranging from a model house to a personal statement, they all show the various ways in which architects’ houses can become a harbinger for the architect’s future work and how it can function as a business card, both accidentally as intentionally. As such, the analysis based on those five inherent characteristics enables us to fathom the added value of the architect’s house as a specific building type.

  The house the architect builds for himself and his family can be considered as a unique,  autobiographical record. Because of the twofold role of being both designer and client, the architect can seize the opportunity to conceive his house as a manifesto, a technological experiment or as a turning point in his career. Moreover, he can also deploy his house as a commercial tool to attract future clients; as a life-size business card which demonstrates his professional expertise and ambitions.

  Research into this specific building type has revealed over 330 architects’ houses built in the Brussels Capital Region between 1830 and 1970. A geographical and chronological analysis showed that many architects used their own home to take part in, or even to anticipate on, evolutions related to the extension of the urban fabric or the development of new architectural styles like art nouveau or modernism.

  To fully grasp the significance of the architect’s house as a...

  The house the architect builds for himself and his family can be considered as a unique,  autobiographical record. Because of the twofold role of being both designer and client, the architect can seize the opportunity to conceive his house as a manifesto, a technological experiment or as...

  Linsy Raaffels, Stephanie Van de Voorde, Inge Bertels, Barbara Van der Wee

  1-21

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  Vakmanschap en comfort

  In a double-width building in the historical centre of Haarlem a classicist painted ceiling from the second quarter of the seventeenth century was recently discovered. It is a beam and joist construction in which the beam bays have been smoothly finished, resulting in a panelled ceiling. The areas between the beams boast a painted architectural division into coffers and panels, enriched with bundles of twigs and floral bouquets, festoons, gilded rosettes and two family coats of arms. The ceiling, which has been dated to between 1635 and 1639, was commissioned by Josephus   Coymans and his wife Dorothea Berck. Ten years earlier, the Coymans family had been among the earliest patrons of Dutch classicism in Amsterdam when they commissioned Jacob van Campen to design the front facade of the Coymanshuis (1625). In Haarlem a classicist decoration programme, developed specifically for use in a genteel bourgeois domestic interior, was designed for the Coymans’ Groot Salet (large drawing room). It is the earliest known example of such decoration in Haarlem.

  The influence of both Sebastiano Serlio and Vincenzo Scamozzi is evident in the design and in the stylistic features of the ceiling. The latter is characterized by a highly effective and painterly application of perspective and shadowing on the flat surface. As such, the decorative programme differs fundamentally from the interior decoration of richly decorated coffered ceilings like the ones used by Jacob van Campen in the grand mansions and residences he designed from the 1630s onwards. By contrast, this ceiling exhibits striking similarities in concept and stylistic execution with the classicist decoration programme for the Vredenburg country house designed in 1639 by the Haarlem painter-architect Pieter Post. At Vredenburg Post demonstrated his mastery of the classic idiom and effectively succeeded in adapting the classicist decoration programme to a genteel bourgeois domestic interior. On the basis of the similarities, the ceiling in Haarlem has also been attributed to Pieter Post. However, the more mature, more elaborate design for Vredenburg must be located later on in the development of this type of interior decoration. With a dating of 1635-1639, the Groot Salet in Haarlem is the earliest known executed work by Pieter Post in Haarlem and must therefore be considered one of the earliest known classicist decoration programmes in a genteel bourgeois interior. This finding offers a firm basis for the dating of comparable discoveries and paintings, which until now has invariably been sought in the second half of the seventeenth century.

  In a double-width building in the historical centre of Haarlem a classicist painted ceiling from the second quarter of the seventeenth century was recently discovered. It is a beam and joist construction in which the beam bays have been smoothly finished, resulting in a panelled ceiling. The areas between the beams boast a painted architectural division into coffers and panels, enriched with bundles of twigs and floral bouquets, festoons, gilded rosettes and two family coats of arms. The ceiling, which has been dated to between 1635 and 1639, was commissioned by Josephus   Coymans and his wife Dorothea Berck. Ten years earlier, the Coymans family had been among the earliest patrons of Dutch classicism in Amsterdam when they commissioned Jacob van Campen to design the front facade of the Coymanshuis (1625). In Haarlem a classicist decoration programme, developed specifically for use in a genteel bourgeois domestic interior, was designed for the Coymans’ Groot Salet...

  In a double-width building in the historical centre of Haarlem a classicist painted ceiling from the second quarter of the seventeenth century was recently discovered. It is a beam and joist construction in which the beam bays have been smoothly finished, resulting in a panelled ceiling. The...

  Marjoleine van Schaik, Maartje Taverne

  22-35

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  Salvatore Olandese

  Between 1910 and 1912, copies of some sixty burial chambers of the catacombs of Rome were reconstructed on the Valkenburg estate of the client, Jan Diepen. To ensure the integrity of the project, an ‘Archeological Advisory Committee’ was assembled under the chairmanship of the architect P.J.H. (Pierre) Cuypers. In response to a historiographical critique by the liturgical scholar Paul Post, this article demonstrates that among the members of the client’s entourage the Valkenburg catacomb reproductions were associated not only with devotional or liturgical matters but also with art-theoretical issues.

  In 1916 the members of the group of advisers chaired by Cuypers published a Festschrift to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the catacomb complex. The first sections of this article discuss and analyse the contents and structure of that publication. It is clear from the Festschrift that both the devotional and the art-theoretical significance of Christian archaeology were acknowledged. In the Festschrift contributions, the symbolic heart of the undertaking, the Salvatore Olandese fresco discovered by Diepen, is not only dealt with as a devotional object, but is also described as an art-historical transitional fresco.

  The devotional and art-theoretical intent resonated even more clearly in the articles about the  complex that appeared in the Dutch press. The reports in the De Tijd newspaper of the opening of the first wing and of an episcopal visitation, confirm that not only the religious but also the artistic ideas associated with the reproductions in the Festschrift, were actually experienced and communicated in the catacomb complex.

  Finally, the manuscript of the 1917 eulogy dedicated to Cuypers in the name of Diepen’s advisers,  reveals that the latter were also cognizant of what the project might mean for Cuypers’ oeuvre. While the Salvatore Olandese connected the Valkenburg reproductions with their Roman models, the manuscript shows that the members of Diepen’s entourage also hoped that their catacombs would connect Rome with Cuypers’ neo-Gothic architecture.

  Between 1910 and 1912, copies of some sixty burial chambers of the catacombs of Rome were reconstructed on the Valkenburg estate of the client, Jan Diepen. To ensure the integrity of the project, an ‘Archeological Advisory Committee’ was assembled under the chairmanship of the architect P.J.H. (Pierre) Cuypers. In response to a historiographical critique by the liturgical scholar Paul Post, this article demonstrates that among the members of the client’s entourage the Valkenburg catacomb reproductions were associated not only with devotional or liturgical matters but also with art-theoretical issues.

  In 1916 the members of the group of advisers chaired by Cuypers published a Festschrift to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the catacomb complex. The first sections of this article discuss and analyse the contents and structure of that publication. It is clear from the Festschrift that both the devotional and the art-theoretical significance of...

  Between 1910 and 1912, copies of some sixty burial chambers of the catacombs of Rome were reconstructed on the Valkenburg estate of the client, Jan Diepen. To ensure the integrity of the project, an ‘Archeological Advisory Committee’ was assembled under the chairmanship of the architect...

  Jasper Van Parys

  36-51

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