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Although, as we will see in Chapter 6, Philippe
Samyn emphasises that ‘it is not a question of pos-
ing as some sort of technological genius’, it is no
less true that a large part of his reputation rests
on his imaginative approach to structural creation.
Even before his first buildings saw the light of day,
his fascination with large-scale frameworks can
be seen in theoretical (but feasible) projects like
the Wing building in the North district of Brussels
(1971). Auguste Perret spoke of ‘making the
fulcrum sing’, but clearly this has to do with the
structures that he built himself – works that were
generally isostatic or weakly hyperstatic, with the
exception of the Esders workshops in Paris and the
airplane hangars in Marignane, which came fairly
late in his career. Nevertheless, with this apho-
rism, Perret indicates that one of the principal
virtues of the architecture he designed was that it
showed itself as it was.
The first large-scale structures built by Philippe Samyn
have a spectacular side to them. This is the case with
the wooden framework of the Boulanger real estate
offices in Waterloo
(01-200)
, and it is particularly
true of the
m
&
g
laboratories at Venafro in southern
Italy
(01-222)
, where six somewhat Moorish arches
made from latticed steel are linked together by poly-
ester membranes covered in
pvc
, forming a group of
hyperbolic pseudo-paraboloids. The entire structure is
completely hermetic. One of the engineer/architect’s
primary concerns here was to ensure that the climate
throughout was mild and well regulated. It is clear
that every structure, from the simplest to the most
complex, calls for a set of physical characteristics that
the architect can neither ignore nor leave in the hands
of the design office, no matter how competent it may
be. Philippe Samyn’s ‘double-skin’ principle, which he
developed very quickly, was not without reference to
the roofs of the best of the so-called colonial structures
or, elsewhere in the world, the double framework
adopted in northern Europe. For Philippe Samyn, the
small Brussimmo building in the rue Belliard, Brussels
(01-225)
, whose urban planning qualities have already
been discussed, is the first implementation of this
principle, which is combined with a desire to maintain a
visible ‘depth’ to the facades.
At least two of the structures imagined by Philippe
Samyn are governed by a specific rule, which dictates
that the mode of construction be somewhat unde-
tectable, despite its pre-eminence in the building’s
appearance. This is the case with Orival service sta-
tion in Nivelles-Nord
(01-365)
and the forestry centre
in Marche-en-Famenne
(01-279)
. The Orival service
station and restaurant is presented as a wide bridge
across the motorway between Brussels and Paris. For
economic and practical reasons that are explained in
the anthology, it was not constructed from a one-piece
arch, but rather from three independent elements that
were built by the side of the motorway, placed on a
small temporary structure and then assembled in a
short amount of time. The problems that this technique
posed were basically linked to the accuracy of the
components and the precision of their dimensions
– problems that a skilled company could solve today
without much difficulty. The odd shapes of the centre in
Marche-en-Famenne – a vast artificial crustacean located
just off the trunk road between Brussels and Arlon –
represent a sort of interpretive puzzle. Made up of a
set of fragments of wooden arches, they also appear to
consist of a group of arches with a single support. Here
again, the motivations behind this mode of construction
had to do with cost and simplicity of execution.
At Wanlin, near Marche-en-Famenne, on the Brussels-
Luxembourg motorway, two small, symmetrical service
stations
(01-314)
bear witness, in a more modest way
CHAPTER 5
STRUCTURES AND
STRUCTURAL PHYSICS
01-365
Orival service station
and restaurant, 1998–1999
01-279
Walloon forestry centre,
Marche-en-Famenne, 1992–1993