Victor Bourgeois

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

Life

Victor Bourgeois visited in the years 1914 to 1919, the Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux -arts de Belgique in Brussels and founded with his brother and other partners, the magazine 7 Arts ( 1922), which in the 1920s, the core the Modern Movement in Belgium was formed.

In 1928 he formed with Huib Hoste 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 rich patroness Hélène de Mandrot had asked her castle available. This excited by Hélène de Mandrot, Sigfried Giedion and Le Corbusier and held under the chairmanship of Karl Moser meeting respected architects drew up the statutes for henceforth organized annually CIAM congresses, whose goal was an exchange of views on current problems of that architecture and especially of urban. Victor Bourgeois took the initiative to organize the third CIAM in Brussels, standing ( "Methods for the construction of residential groupings Rationnelle ") under the theme Méthode pour la construction sional ratio of groupements d'habitation.

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

Works

In the construction of the later winning Cité Modern (1922-1925) in Berchem -Sainte -Agathe he broke the monotony of the series home area by the different design of the houses, space and courtyards as well as by a lively composition of the facades.

As the only Belgians he designed in 1927 the family house in the Friedrich- Ebert Straße 118 under the leadership of Dr. Boll. The house was included The apartment afterwards to the exhibition, which is the Weißenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart today.

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 World Exhibition in Brussels in 1958 he found his way back to the flexibility and intensity of its origins.

Victor Bourgeois summed up the " architecture as a mirror of society " and sat down early with the urban design apart. He created primarily administrative buildings, housing projects, schools and settlements. Michel Ragon assigns it the " generation [ to ], which could be called Cubist". Its smaller houses and apartment buildings were characterized by straight angles and flat roofs.

Awards

Literature and sources

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