Basic HTML Version
99
#
01-032
ATHÉNÉE ROYAL
/ WATERLOO
(WALLOON BRABANT PROVINCE)
/ 1980–1981 /
1982–1984
*
The introductory pages of this book contain a lengthy
discussion of this complex and monumental building,
whose symmetrical layout appears to have leapt from
the pen of J.N.L. Durand. The systematisation of its
vigorous, constructive details and the modulation of the
drawings give the interior space a flexibility that has
perhaps never been fully utilised. In Devenir Moderne?,
Pierre Loze and Philippe Samyn relate that the build-
ing was part of a larger, unbuilt project, which would
have included kindergartens and primary schools, a
restaurant, a boarding school, a gymnasium and a
pool. In its current state, however, the building stands
very well on its own, much as the luminous construc-
tion of the Kröller-Müller Rijksmuseum in Otterlo, the
Netherlands, also stood independently for a long time.
The Rijksmuseum was built by Henry van de Velde in
1936 using comparable principles of symmetry, and
was not in the least tainted by conservatism. With
that building, Van de Velde showed that symmetry and
asymmetry could be the two faces of modern thought,
even an architecture close to an organic way of think-
ing, provided that the structure’s functions required it.
The Waterloo Athénée Royal thus appears to grow like
certain natural organisms, both vegetable and mineral,
obeying morphological laws that seem close to those
governing the growth of crystals. Subsequently, as
mentioned elsewhere, Philippe Samyn was to focus on
fractals and on the beauty that could be created from
using them. This construction is, in a way, a premoni-
tory one. In Belgium, school construction was for a long
time subject to overzealous administrative regulations
handed down by engineers from different departments.
Composing – in every sense of the word – within this
regulatory framework was nothing short of a miracle.
According to Devenir Moderne?, the use of proven
techniques and a ‘tartan’ design ensured flexibility for
the building, but also made it the least expensive school
building erected in Belgium at the time.