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'The daring that characterises the New Line has
not, in this way, spoken its last word. This daring
has no mystical source, as was the case with Gothic
daring; it is the result of our total confidence in
calculations. First, these calculations confirm the
experience that was the exclusive basis for those
who built frameworks and bridges; second, they
emancipate us from this experience and thus open
up, into infinity, the realm of possibilities whose
realisation, without calculations, always suffered
the effects of caution’s restrictive influence.'
Henry van de Velde, ‘Vers la ligne nouvelle’,
La Cité, April 1923
The rich, multifaceted oeuvre of Philippe Samyn takes
its place in the relative discontinuity of the history of
architecture, engineering and architectural thought in
the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It is
a history that is difficult for its commentators to grasp,
divided as they are between the subject’s ideological,
visual and technical dimensions. The myth of a syn-
thesis haunts these interpretations, at least for those
that predate the Second World War. But this myth
will progressively disappear. The majority of works
on recent architecture focus on discussions about the
visual dimension – sometimes, it must be admitted, in
connection with architecture’s relation to urban planning
– even when this concerns hi-tech (or other) achieve-
ments. Stardom has been replaced in many people’s
eyes by global visions of movements and ideas. The
ideological implications – naturally always present – are
ignored, or worse, assimilated in or hidden beneath a
uniform thinking that has tried for more than two dec-
ades to insinuate its way into politics and philosophy.
Even though we are not necessarily asking architects
and urban planners to step out of their roles as builders
– and though most of them would not in any case want
to – their work nevertheless consists in giving shape
to a certain social organisation. As for architecture’s
technical dimension, commentators generally give it
little attention or consider it ‘a matter for engineers’
except, as in the case with Norman Foster’s Hongkong
and Shanghai Bank, when the expressive quality of
the structure seems to outweigh other aspects.
1
While often indifferent to architectural trends, Philippe
Samyn’s oeuvre presents notable discontinuities, which
nevertheless share a common theme. Thus one cannot
help but find spatial similarities between his first impor-
tant project
(
the Waterloo Athénée Royal, 1980
; 01-032)
and his most recent project
(
competition for offices at
Rome city hall, 2007;
01-526)
. But while some of his
works feature spectacular structural characteristics, oth-
ers are much more unassuming and are even, in some
cases, reminiscent of traditional architectural language.
On the other hand, Samyn's dual roles of architect and
engineer mean he instinctively understands that a build-
ing is something other than a three-dimensional image
or an envelope, and that engineering should not be lim-
ited to the structure, but should encompass the physical
aspects of the construction in a synthetic whole.
Philippe Samyn began his career at the moment
when Europe’s Les Trente Glorieuses or ‘The Glorious
Thirty’ – the period between 1945 and 1975 – had
come to an end. The aftermath of the Second World
War was marked by a baby boom, reconstruction
(less so in Belgium), the resumption and relocation of
economic activities, and the hasty industrialisation of
construction-related activities. This period has been
highly criticised, and it is true that is it characterised by
a high percentage of buildings that were ill designed as
well as quickly and shoddily constructed. That said, the
great inter-war architects continue to fascinate us: Frank
Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,
Alvar Aalto, Marcel Breuer, Walter Gropius and others
who produced major works and who were becoming
recognised beyond small avant-garde circles. These
were not ostentatiously aggressive works, but those
that were the fulfilment of a vision. In the United States,
CHAPTER 1
A BRIEF LOOK BACK
01-291 and 01-268
Aula Magna at the Université
Catholique de Louvain, 1996–1999