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Post World War II European modern housing often exhibited a Corbusian influence, but Le Corbusier was not embraced to the same extent everywhere, as noticed during exchanges between the University of Lisbon and the University of Antwerp in the ambit of the COST-Action 18137 on MCMH. While Belgium has several 1950s social housing projects, strongly indebted in its Unité d'habitation in Marseilles, Portugal does not. There, social housing architecture remained rather conservative, even though Corbusian features manifested themselves in some middle-class mass housing projects, such as the complex on Avenida Estados Unidos da América in Lisbon (1954-1966) designed by Lucínio Cruz, Alberto Ayres de Sousa and Mário Oliveira. While the housing blocks are on pilotis, they also have notable Art-Deco elements. In Belgium, free-standing modernist housing on pilotis with Art-Deco features also appears, such as the housing project at the Jan De Voslei in Antwerp designed by Jos Smolderen (1952-1967). These Modernist/Art-Deco hybrids have never been explored in depth because they are considered not radical enough. However, these cases shed light on how (older) architects mediated between traditional architecture and Modernism, between their own preferences and those of the state or housing company. They illuminate the political, social, and urban context in which these buildings were created. This paper explains why the principles Belgian architects applied to social housing were closer to Lisbon's middle-class housing than their similar buildings for low-income housing. Based on cross-referencing archival material, legislation, on-site observations, and a study of the political, urban and social context, this paper posits a re-reading of Le Corbusier's legacy in middle-class housing in Lisbon versus Antwerp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public housing of the reconstruction period is generally considered a poor imitation of the modernist housing of the interwar period. The pressing housing shortage and the urge for rapid reconstruction initiated the rationalization of the construction process. Still, postwar housing production has often been blamed for having turned into a purely technocratic and pragmatic undertaking and for having lost the leftist ideals in which the modernism of the Modern Movement was engrained--providing all people with decent housing. Complaints of drabness, disorientation, inhuman vastness, isolation, and monotony have been raised. For many protagonists in the housing debate, highrise projects have been consistently perceived as being maladjusted for families with children. However, does all postwar housing fit that picture? Was life in a high-rise apartment really that harmful for families with children? What did those kinds of buildings do to their inhabitants? By means of a Belgian case study--the modernist, well-promoted high-rise public housing blocks of the avant-gardist Renaat Braem at the Kiel Estate--the article questions this picture. Going from the macro-scale of Belgian postwar housing policy to the micro-level of the home of two occupants of Braem's apartments, I reveal the interactions and tensions between the opinion of some politicians, design discourses, the architecture of the building, and the living practice of the inhabitants. KEYWORDS: postwar housing, high-rise blocks, living practices, Belgian housing, socialist modernism, THE KIEL HOUSING ESTATE AS A VEHICLE TOWARDS A SOCIALIST 'NEW LIFESTYLE' (1) Existing historiography char acterizes public housing in the postwar years in many European cities as modernist, anonymous, [...]

ABSTRACT After the Second World War the home took on a new relevance as a central concern for governments and citizens alike. In Belgium the need for new housing was [...]

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced people worldwide to stay home for long periods. Dance schools and sports clubs have organized online courses. Homes have thus become a stage for body movements. Although online gym classes seem like a new phenomenon, they had a predecessor in the radio gym classes of the 1930s. Belgian dancer Lea Daan (1906–1995), schooled in modern dance by German choreographer Rudolf von Laban, gave gym classes in Dutch for the newly founded National Radio Institute and succeeded in creating a sense of community without any visual means. This paper investigates how Daan organized these live classes and how they fitted within the broader framework of home culture during the economic crisis. We also reflect on the relation between the private and public spheres, a relation reinforced by the modern home through specific architectural elements intended to reform all household members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we look into different texts treating the history of education of interior design. Ever since the interior design discipline has started to seek connection with academia, research on its past has become a negotiation scene for a shared understanding of the discipline, its roots, and its current practice. Academic discourse is characterized by a need to counter perceptions that have pestered the discipline in the past, and have hindered its process toward professionalization. By scanning through the body of theory that has been produced in the past two decades, we search for content that acknowledges the value of historical education and its contribution to a debate on the discipline's identity. After contextualizing this specific kind of research, we not only try to find common ground between different texts that each focus on a specific time period, school, or country, but also aim to unveil the position taken by an author when constructing such a history. All authors showcase a need to use their text as a confirmation of disciplinary distinction—an aspect heavily perpetuated throughout discourse on interior design's identity. To conclude, we propose a different perspective on educational history that transcends a distinction‐based narrative by postulating interior design's educational history as a strategy to produce new knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As recent international scholarship has shown, the Modern Movement was not as coherent as authors such as Sigfried Giedion or Nikolaus Pevsner have claimed. Post-war modernism in particular has many faces. Although architects produced similar housing typologies that are presented in collective works of social housing within the same category, the architects could still take different positions. By means of a comparative analysis of two radical modernist high-rise housing projects in Antwerp, this article demonstrates how the focus of the design of similar projects could still differ considerably. Designed by Renaat Braem, the Kiel housing estate (1953) in the south of Antwerp will be compared with Hugo Van Kuyck's Luchtbal housing estate (1954-1962) in the city's north. Although both complexes are social housing blocks raised on pilotis, they differ in size, concept, architectural quality and degree of detailing, but also in ideology and utopian content. Both architects shared a fascination for Le Corbusier's Ville Radieuse and for the Athens Charter (1933), and held a belief in progress and the need for a new idiom. At the same time, however, they have different ways of dealing with modernity. I will employ the analytical framework developed by architectural historian Sarah Williams Goldhagen (2000) to shed light on the architects' different positions on the social and political axes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT In Western countries, the discipline of interior design has struggled to define itself from the beginning. One reason is that designing interiors is a multifaceted, layered, even interdisciplinary process. One has to deal with architectural environments as well as objects, with spaces as well as more ephemeral backdrops. Moreover, because designing interiors is not very different from certain everyday activities, interior professionals want to dissociate their activities from everyday decorating. Nomenclature has played an important role in trying to professionalize. By employing the term of 'interior architect,' professional practitioners have sought to insist on the distance that separates their work from everyday design practices. However, interior architecture has also wanted to avoid being seen as a subcategory of architecture. As a result, alternative terms have circulated, which have been equally question-begging. By means of a case study of one country's attempt to professionalize the practice of designing interiors, this essay will uncover how professional identities emerged and were labeled in postwar Belgian Flanders. We will show how different profiles, ranging from schooled interior architects to self-made domestic advisors and interior decorators, enabled practitioners to approach interiors differently and sometimes design in different ways. At the same time, we will investigate why the term 'Interior architect' was employed by all the profiles of practitioners. The historically and culturally specific case study will be framed against the internationally ongoing process of professionalization. The road toward professionalization in Flanders runs parallel to that in a lot of Western countries. The Flemish case is remarkable, though, in that issues of nomenclature and identity formation were already heavily debated, even taken to court, from the mid-1950s until the mid-1960s. While in North American and Australian educational programs and professional contexts, the gradual adoption of descriptions such as 'interior design' and 'interior architecture' is of more recent vintage, this process took place in Flanders already in the 1960s. With our historically early case study-the first Flemish interior design program dates back to 1946-we want to contribute to the ongoing international debate about the professionalization of the interior discipline as well as discussions on nomenclature and the complex relationship between professionals and amateurs. Through a historically and culturally specific case study, this article will show how different profiles, ranging from schooled interior architects to self-made interior advisors and interior decorators, enabled practitioners to approach interiors differently and sometimes to design in different ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Kiel Housing Estate in Germany of the Belgian modernist architect Renaat Braem as a catalyst to a social modern way of life. It states that the pressing housing shortage and the urge for rapid reconstruction initiated the rationalization of the construction process. It mentions that postwar housing production has often been blamed for turning into a purely technocratic and pragmatic undertaking and for losing the leftist ideals. It notes that the housing estate shows clearly that domestic architecture, even in its modern version, allowed residents much more flexibility than one might expect. Overviews on the interactions between the opinion of some politicians, design discourses, inhabitants' living practice, and the buildings' architecture are offered.

Do not silence my Bladder. Practices, knowledge and behaviour of peeing women. In many cities, there are considerably fewer toilet facilities for women than for men. While some cities invest in new high-tech urinals, the scarce facilities for women have limited opening hours and are often "hidden" (e.g. underground parking lot). This systematic negligence for the need for sanitary equipment for women is also reflected during some public happenings. This study is based on data collected during the Festival of Ghent 2005, where women are often queuing to use the relatively few mobile toilets. On top of that they have to spend up to 50 euro cent per visit. This is in sharp contrast to the abundant free urinals for men. To prove the point that women also are entitled to free pee facilities, a free lady-urinal was opened, with an average of 200 visitors a day and very positive feedback as a result. The result of a questionnaire on the subject answered by 414 women, is presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]