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Figure 14:
ulb
medical school
auditorium, Anderlecht (01-270)
Figure 15: Head offices of the Dupuis
publishing company, Marcinelle (01-286)
Figure 16: The Aula Magna at
ucl
,
Louvain-la-Neuve (01-291)
the auditorium at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (
ulb
)
medical school in Anderlecht
(01-270, figure 14)
, the
forestry centre in Marche-en-Famenne
(01-279, figure 5)
,
the head offices of the Dupuis publishing company in
Marcinelle
(01-286, figure 15)
and the Aula Magna at
the Université Catholique de Louvain (
ucl
) in Louvain-la-
Neuve (
01-291, figure 16)
. Continuing his morphological
research, Philippe Samyn then began to design basic
symmetrical structures, such as office units, which
could be combined to form asymmetrical wholes. The
arrangement of these wholes would depend on the site
data and the programme, much like a medieval city, an
important cultural reference for Samyn, in which the
houses fit into each other in a seemingly disorganised
manner. The extension of ’t Hoofd, the former Lamot
brewery in Klein-Willebroek
(01-310/353, figures 17)
,
the 1996 SmithKline Beecham project in Rixensart
(01-334, figures 18)
and the Arenberg research centre
at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (
kul
),
(01-391)
were the result of a design of small, medium and large
symmetrical elements respectively, placed without
any apparent logic or interconnection. One of the
noteworthy results of Samyn’s morphological research
on symmetry and dissymmetry is the project for the
headquarters of the Council of the European Union in
Brussels
(01-494, figure 20)
. By superimposing ellipses
in an alternating manner such that the major axis of one
ellipsis was placed parallel to the minor axis of the next,
Philippe Samyn was able to obtain ‘a perfectly symmet-
rical structure whose aspect is perfectly asymmetrical!’
This morphological discovery ‘interests and delights for
the new dimensions of research it opens up’.
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