Victor Bourgeois

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Victor Bourgeois (born August 29, 1897 in Charleroi (Belgium), † July 22, 1962 in Ixelles near Brussels ) was a Belgian architect and town planner . He was the older brother of the poet Pierre Bourgeois .

Life

Victor Bourgois attended the Académie royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles in Brussels from 1914 to 1919 and, with his brother and other partners, founded the magazine 7 Arts: tous les arts (1922–1928), which in the 1920s was the core of the Modern Movement in Belgium. In the vicinity of the magazine, an artist group formed which , in addition to Pierre-Louis Flouquet , Karel Maes and Marcel-Louis Baugniet, also includes Felix De Boeck , Victor Servranckx , Jozef Peeters , Marc Eemans and Stanislas Jasinski . In 1930 the 7 Arts group separated .

In 1928 he and Huib Hoste formed the "Belgian Delegation" (the two were the only members of this delegation) to participate in the first Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM, International Congress of Modern Architecture) La Sarraz ( Switzerland ), for the the wealthy patroness Hélène de Mandrot had made her castle available. This meeting of respected architects, initiated by Hélène de Mandrot, Sigfried Giedion and Le Corbusier and chaired by Karl Moser , developed the statutes for the CIAM congresses, which will be organized annually from now on, the aim of which was to exchange ideas on current problems of architecture at that time and especially urban planning . Victor Bourgois took the initiative to organize the 3rd CIAM in Brussels, which was under the motto Méthodes rationnelles pour la construction des groupements d'habitation ("Rational methods for the construction of residential groups").

In addition to his work as an architect and urban planner, Bourgeois worked as a professor at the École nationale supérieur d'architecture .

Works

During the construction of the later award-winning Cité Moderne (1922–1925) in Berchem-Sainte-Agathe , he broke the monotony of the row house settlement through the different designs of the houses, squares and courtyards as well as through a lively composition of the facades.

As the only Belgian he designed the single-family house at Friedrich-Ebertstraße 118 in 1927 under the direction of Dr. Boll. The house was added to the exhibition The Apartment , which is now the Weißenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart .

Together with Henry van de Velde and Léon Stynen , he built the pavilion for the 1939 World's Fair in New York .

In addition to often dry realizations, he drew interesting projects such as the town hall of Ostend (1954). With the pavilion for the 1958 World Exhibition in Brussels, he found his way back to the flexibility and intensity of his beginnings.

Victor Bourgois understood the "architecture as a mirror of society" and dealt with urban planning early on. He mainly created administration buildings, social buildings, schools and settlements. Michel Ragon assigns him to the "generation that could be called cubist". His smaller houses and apartment buildings were characterized by straight angles and flat roofs.

Awards

  • 1925: Grand Prix of the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs (Exhibition of Decorative Arts) in Paris for the Cité Moderne in Berchem-Sainte-Agathe.

Literature and Sources

  • Georges Linze: Victor Bourgeois . Brussels 1961.
  • Gerd Hatje (ed.): Lexicon of modern architecture . Droemersche Verlagsanstalt Theodor Knaur Nachf., Munich / Zurich, 1963.
  • Michel Ragon: Histoire de l'architecture et de l'urbanisme modern, 2nd Naissance de la cité modern 1900-1940 . Seuil, Paris 1991, ISBN 2-02-013288-5 .
  • General Artist Lexicon Volume XIII, 1996, p. 377

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Michel Ragon, p. 240
  2. ^ Lexicon of modern architecture
  3. ↑ Michel Ragon, p. 334
personal data
SURNAME Bourgeois, Victor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian architect and urban planner
DATE OF BIRTH August 29, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Charleroi
DATE OF DEATH July 22, 1962
Place of death Ixelles near Brussels