L’Equerre, a Liège modern architecture review
In 1931, when its founders had completed their studies, the contents of L’Equerre broke away from the Academy of Fine Arts. The publication of foundational texts and reflections on questions of town and regional development intensified. The main trends of current developments in architecture at a local, European and global level were analysed to the benefit of a commitment to an innovative architecture and a radical critique of Liège architecture. ‘They constantly complained that Liège remained behind in relation to modern trends in architecture.’ Little by little the group’s members weaved themselves a network, not only with the main modern Belgian architects (Victor Bourgeois, Louis-Herman De Koninck, etc.), but very quickly with the international world as well and in particular with the CIAM (International Congresses of Modern Architecture), where all the theorists of the modern movement came together (Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, etc.). In 1935, the members of L’Equerre became CIAM secretaries for Belgium, putting themselves in the front line in relation to this international movement. Numerous ideas mobilized at CIAM congresses were reproduced and interpreted in L’Equerre, a genuine propaganda magazine for the modern movement on a national level. A break with Liègeois architectureWhilst in Liège an historically inspired architecture dominated, L’Equerre embodied the ideas of modernity, advocating a minimalist and functionalist style. Shorn of decorations, the architectural line supported by the architecture and town development agency played on the volumes and used industrial materials at cheap prices. Bang in the middle of the housing crisis the CIAM, for which L’Equerre was an intermediary, offered a ‘Minimum house’, at a fair price and without embellishments, breaking with the luxurious and bourgeois art deco and Fine Arts architecture which prevailed in the 1920s. This Minimum house also claimed itself as a response to the modern world, the spaces designed in particular having to facilitate a woman’s work in managing the household. |
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© 2007 ULi�ge
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