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21
that was the result of both the personal lyricism of
the engineer and the technical, economic and func-
tional requirements of the project in question. These
imperatives are clearly decisive ones in the treatment
of administrative and commercial projects, where the
very image of architecture can play a fundamental role.
Yet, with less attentive architects, this image cannot
replace an ongoing concern for truth. The superficiality
of momentarily fashionable movements is the result of
failing to differentiate between being and appearance.
‘Primitive’ functionalism (to use Maurice Casteels’s
expression) has often claimed the ascendancy of being
over appearance, although close analysis of the works
of ‘heroic’ modernism show that this goal was only
rarely achieved – examples include Ernst May’s excep-
tional projects in Frankfurt and those by Louis Herman
De Koninck in Belgium.
8
One should also examine
the intelligent blend of lyricism and rationality in Erich
Mendelsohn’s projects and achievements both in Berlin
and elsewhere – distant relations of works by members
of the Chicago School.
This same blend would appear to have guided the
best works of Philippe Samyn in this area, including
the renovation project for the Au Bon Marché depart-
ment store in Brussels
(01-165)
, the Renault factory
in Vilvoorde
(01-140)
, the residential and administra-
tive complex designed and built for Urbaine
uap
in
Roeselaere
(01-180)
, the Espace Christian Dotremont
in Nivelles-Nord
(01-379)
and the Immomills building in
Brussels
(01-232)
. These five projects, at first glance
very different, are the very image of a strict rationality.
For some, the ‘Egyptian’ aspect of the large ventila-
tion towers at the Shell chemical research centre in
Louvain-la-Neuve
(01-160)
appear to introduce a gratui-
tous element into the architect’s formal choices. They
do nothing of the kind; the desire to give a monumental
appearance to purely technical structures has been an
ongoing theme through the ages, as attested to by the
roofs of Chambord. More recent examples include the
groupings of pipes and shafts created by Le Corbusier
in his unités d’habitation, Renaat Braem’s similar work
in the Kiel complex in Antwerp (1952), the ventilation
system of the Brugmann Hospital designed by Victor
Horta between 1906 and 1923, the ventilation shafts
on the facade of the Braecke workshop in Brussels
(also by Horta, 1901) and the same arrangement
by Antoine Pompe for Dr Van Neck’s clinic (1910).
All these examples show the interest of numerous
architects in a constructive candour that is not limited
to a single structural expression, but which tries to
avoid the visual disaster that is often the result of the
ill-considered addition of antennae and different types
of piping.
9
01-232
Immomills office building,
Brussels, 1989–1996
01-160
Shell chemical research centre,
Louvain-la-Neuve, 1986