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17
Philippe Samyn began his professional life in a
collaboration with the design office of Verdeyen
and Moenaert, which was followed by a stint as a
‘classic’ engineering consultant with the architect
Christian Van Deuren, and finally as an architect
in his own right with Albert De Doncker. Christian
Van Deuren (1940–1994) became known for the
Saint-Augustin convent, built in 1977–1978 on
rue Saint-Ghislain, in the working-class Brussels
neighbourhood of Marolles.
The project, at once modest and authoritative, for which
Philippe Samyn acted as engineer, fits perfectly in a
difficult context. It sits next to a small primary school,
skilfully designed by Victor Horta (1895–1899), in the
midst of rows of mid-nineteenth-century working-class
housing. The rhythm of Van Deuren’s composition takes
its inspiration from the architectural tradition of Brussels
without being entirely derivative. Verticality dominates
a horizontally constructed facade; the materials – bricks
and mortar – are those of the neighbourhood and the
integration is perfect. Meanwhile, Philippe Samyn
also built a number of private homes in the suburbs
of Brussels, where he fully assumed the mantle of
architect
(01-008, 01-036 and 01-056)
. Christian Van
Deuren’s style of composition is close to one that
Philippe Samyn would use a few years later in the rue
du Marais
(01-057)
, in which the architect balances
the length of the facade and its placement on a narrow
street with a design that plays with vertical rhythms,
particularly in its regularly punctuated masonry facade.
Rather than lingering on the picturesque qualities of the
contrasting materials, the light-coloured stone plays the
same role as the mortar in Van Deuren’s building.
For the Athénée Royal in Waterloo
(01-032)
, Albert
De Doncker gave a free hand to his young associate.
Philippe Samyn’s flowering passion for geometry is
here displayed with great virtuosity.
1
The floor plan
comprises a strict structure over a relatively irregular
terrain, which was re-developed at the same time. The
structure imposes an unexpected order, a regularity
in which the classical spirit is not absent and in which
traces of the work of several major ‘timeless’ archi-
tects, such Louis Kahn or Dom Hans van der Laan, can
be felt. As Samyn explained during several interviews
in 2006 and 2007, part of his research focused on
architectural archetypes that struck him as ensuring
both conceptual solidity and a distancing from formalist
folly, which appeared to have taken over architecture.
2
Philippe Samyn, engaged in constructing his own
language, wanting to anchor it in certainties such as
those concerned with the morphology of structures. He
investigated this subject from the early 1970s onwards,
and it constitutes one of the foundations of his theoreti-
cal and pedagogical thinking. Whether consciously or
not, the dual inspiration of Kahn and Jean Nicolas Louis
Durand tempers the somewhat spare and monumental
aspect of the design.
3
Over time, Philippe Samyn’s architectural discourse
positions itself as a search for the perfect balance
between form, function, technique and urban planning,
having as little as possible to do with ‘schools’ and
‘trends’. Of course, the weight of the current epoch
makes itself felt, despite archetypes and timeless-
ness. In addition to the influence of Kahn, we may
also compare the aesthetic of the Athénée at Waterloo
(01-032)
to the ‘brutalist’ aesthetic that was predomi-
nant among modernists in the 1960s and 1970s. This
trend freely emphasised concrete frameworks filled
with brick, and can be seen in Belgium in the work
of Marc Dessauvage, Luc Delhaise, John Eggericx,
Jacques Wybauw, Robert Courtois, André Jacqmain,
Lucien Jacques Baucher and others. Whether familiar
or not to Philippe Samyn at the time, all of the above
are descendants in their own way of the contrasting
CHAPTER 2
THE DESIRE
FOR ARCHITECTURE
01-036
Boulanger house,
Ohain, 1976–1977
01-036
Boulanger house,
Ohain, 1976–1977
01-032
Athénée Royal,
Waterloo, 1980–1981