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In the face of a growing body of theoretical, his-
torical and technical knowledge (particularly over
the past three decades), as well as the develop-
ment of regional, national and international regu-
lations, the relationship between contemporary
architecture and architectural heritage as a whole
has become complex. In Belgium, for example, the
country’s three regions have different policies in
this respect. Curiously, however, the function of
restorer carries no particular privilege, and any
architect can be a practitioner.
This situation obliges architects to train themselves on
the job if need be, but gives them an openness that is
often lacking in constitutional bodies. One might add
that seeing an existing situation as sacred represents a
certain narrow-mindedness. There has been a profound
shift in approach, specifically in the area of architectural
heritage, since the creation, in the second quarter of
the nineteenth century, of the first European commit-
tees for the cataloguing and protection of monuments
and sites. Viollet-le-Duc and his English counterparts
restored medieval structures not to what they had been,
but to what they should have been. In discovering the
construction methods of the medieval architects, they
laid the foundation of the architectural rationalism of
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and
inspired great innovators such as Horta and De Koninck.
Little by little, the idea evolved that the edifices of the
past should be integrated into contemporary life and
its functions. New projects were created, not all of
them built, ranging from simple collage to respectful
integration, and from pure butchery (sometimes with
unusual or anachronistic elements) to the insertion of
contemporary elements into ancient architecture. Such
interventions were often the subject of fierce debate.
It should be added that the change in thinking towards
simply (and probably not without danger) abandoning
the Athens Charter and moving towards a concern for
smaller scales and contextualisation would complete the
picture of the relationship between the architecture of
the past and that of the present. The ever-present strug-
gle between ancient and modern is not the focus here,
and the often visceral critical reactions are not based
on considered theory, like that developed by Françoise
Choay in L’allégorie du patrimoine.
1
It seems evident
that any intervention in an existing architecture, no
matter what its intrinsic qualities, requires an in-depth
investigation of the technical means of that architecture,
including any errors, and whether one has chosen the
path of transformation, partial or total restoration, or
restitution in the nineteenth-century sense of the term.
The most important aspect today is to allow for inter-
ventions to be identifiable and legible and, if possible,
to make clear their chronology. Philippe Samyn has not
often directly intervened in heritage architecture, but
when he has, the results have been spectacular. The
most important in terms of volume was the re-devel-
opment and reorganisation of the Brugmann Hospital
site
(01-312
; currently under construction
)
, which is
discussed in the anthology. The intervention included
the construction of new buildings tucked into the gener-
ously spaced ensemble designed by Victor Horta at
the beginning of the twentieth century. The challenge
was to find a new language that did not put the first
architect’s design in jeopardy, but rather restored it to
its place through counterpoint or contrast.
Even more spectacular was the extension, the partial
restoration – bringing it into compliance – and transfor-
mation of one of the wings of the Residence Palace in
Brussels
(01-494)
. It appears to be a collage of three
architectures: the original set of buildings, an Art Deco
masterpiece from the 1920s, only very partially listed;
the new superstructures for these edifices (including
a photovoltaic umbrella that is the source of ongoing
CHAPTER 4
ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE
01-469
House of Glass,
Lommel, 2004–2005
Louis Herman De Koninck
Dotremont house, Uccle, 1931
01-312
Brugmann Hospital,
Brussels, 1994