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B1L1ssels-A Manifesto is lJasecl or1

tt1e B1ussels Capital of Eu1ope project,

producecJ at the Berlage I11stitLJte

during the acaden1ic year 2004- 2005.
This project was part of the Capital
Cities research progran1me that has
been conducted by Pier Vittorio Aureli
at the Berlage Institute since 2004.
The object of this progran1me is tt1e
political and cultural redefinition of
the notion of the city at the beginning
of the twenty-first century.
The following people took part in
the Brussels Capital of Europe- U1ban
Form, Representation, A1chitectu1e

project: Bernardina Borra, Weerapaat

Chokedeetaweeanan,Joachim
Declerck, Cristina Garcia Fontan,
Hiromi Haruki, Bart Melort,
Alexa Nurnberger, Konstantinos
Pantazis, Marc Ryan, Heng Shi,
Pier PaoloTamburelli, MartinoTattara,
Niki as Vee I ken, Dubravka Vranic,
Tom Weiss and ZhiyiYang.

. I

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Brussels - A Mar1ifest,o

007

Introduction

015

Europe as Patter r1

026

Europe as Project

The City as'Political Form

043

Capital City

055

Brussels

067

The Political

073

The Formal

033

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Towards the Capital of Europe

081

CoQstitution of the Project

A

The European Quarter

1 20

The European Parliament

1 32

The Canal Quarter

1 40

The Carrefour de !'Europe

1 46

The European University Centre

1 52

Mundaneum

1 58

The Josaphat Quarter

1 64

The Bockstael Housing Pole

1 68

The Gate

1 06

Edited by
Pier Vittorio Aureli
Bernardina Borra
Joachim Declerck
Agata Mierzwa
Martino Tattara
Tom Weiss

A Theory on the City

1 77

Thinking Europe
Mario Tronti

1 85

Architecture after Liberalism

Pier Vittorio Aureli

205

Brussels-Europe: An Aporia?
Gery Leloutre and lwan Strauven

225

For A New Monumentality

Elia Zenghelis

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111

007

I r1troductior1

007

1. 1

Future

007

1.2

Present

007

1.3

Conjecture

009

1.4

Architecture

01 1

1.5

City (Brussels)

011

1 .6

I dea (Europe)

013

1.7

History and Project

015

Europe as Pattern

015

2. 1

Pattern

015

2.2

Archipelago

017

2.3

Empire

019

2.4

Network

019

2.5

I nfinite

021

2.6

Enclaves

023

2.7

Plan

025

2.8

Fortress

026

Europe as Project

026

3.1

Struggle

027

3 .2

Borders

029

3.3

War

030

3. 4

Peace

031

3.5

Urbanity (Europe)

033

The City as Political Form

033

4.1

The City versus Urbanization

034

4.2

Citizen versus Bourgeois

035

4.3

City Composition

035

4.4

Access as Citizenship

037

4.5

The EU and the City

041

4.6

Archipelago

043

5.1

Capital City

043

5.2

National Capital

045

5.3

Cultural Capital

047

5.4

Social Capital

049

5.5

Total Capital

051

5.6

Archipelago Capital

053

5.7

TheTwenty-First-Century Capital

Capital City

043

055

Brussels

055

6.1

Europes' Crucible

057

6.2

Bui It, Destroyed and Rebui I t

061

6.3

Today (Trauma)

063

6.4

Legacies

065

6.5

Political Metropolis

065

6.6

Capital Complex

067

6.7

Capital of Europe

067

T1e Polit ica I

067

7.1

Ago11isn1

068

7.2

Against Smoothness

069

7.3

Against the Creative Class

071

7.4

Communitarian Class

071

7.5

Constitutionalism versus
Gradualism

7.6

073
073

City Consciousness

The Formal

073

8.1

Form

074

8.2

Inside-Outside

074

8.3

Architectural Form

075

8.4

Simple Forms

,,

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Class

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A n 11icon '' of world capital i s m . No to the a1chitecture of capitalist rea/1sn1!

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ntro uct1on

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Future

A rcl1 i tectu re has a l ways been

s t1bserv ient to the rt1 l i ng a utl1orities i n h u man society. To rea l ize bu ilt
arc h i tecture, a rchitects have to explicitly or i m p l ititly, consciously
or unconscio usly, comply with tl1e priorities of the p ower system in
force. Architects whose principles oppose these priorities find them
selves unable to rea lize thei r archi tecture and ca11 only postul ate,
by means o f proj ects, conjectu res antici pating a n alternative regi me.
O ften they are the harbi nge1s o f the futu re .

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Presen t

The p 1emi se o f this man i festo

i s aga i nst the p resent global political condition and its propensity
for an a rch itectt1ral c u ltt1 re that, especially i n its most celebrated
fo1m, emblematica l l y assumes global capita l ism to be the supreme
ideol ogy o f tl1e society it represents. Far from being j ust a means
of development, world capitalism i s today a n end i n itse l f. Fa1" from
being j ust a matter of fact, the market i s a n outsta n d i 11g forn1 o f
ideology: the i l l usion that profit and competition can coexist with
soc i a l j ustice and eq t1 a l ity. Therefore i t is precise l y within the rea l m
of i deology that i t i s appropri ate to ch al le11ge the l1egemony of world
capital ism over the city.

Conjecture

The project for Britssels as Capital

City of Europe p resented i n this manifesto focuses on the rea rticula tion and redefin ition o f the i dea o f the city and the role of architec
tL1 re withi n a p o l i tica l fra mework that reverses tl1e present-day

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The Manifesto di Ventolene ( A ltiero S p i n e l li, Ernesto Rossi, E u genio Colorni, 1 941)
8

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I rural , ()cia], a11d pc)) itica l e11tropy of l i l1eral den1oc1acy.

Tl1e po litical fra n1ework as L1n1ed l1y this n1anifesto is the

Federa list Project o f Btlrope as it was cc>ncei ved by the fpu 11ding
father o f the EL1ropea 11 U11ion , A l tiero Spine l l i . We are concerned
a bout t l1e main principle of Federa lism : the advancement o f society
and the research o f peace is not defined within a co1n m unity but
among commun1t1es.
Tradition a l l y, geopo litical communities in the form of nation
states were created by c hance or by wa1 . The Federa list Proj ect of
the E u ropean Union is the first geopolitical entity in the world that
was p ursued not by war but by political ac.tion. Fc,r this reason, the
Federa list Project o f E u rope is in itself a project of peace. To support
and represent this project essentia l l y means to represent and support
the choice of civic coexistence o f different communities of people
over the economic opportunism of pacific coexistence itsel f. Within
the proj ect of the city, the embracement offederal ism means the
acknowledgment o f differences within a common ground. The city
m ust be considered not as an agglomeration o f singular facts bound
together on l y by the opportunity of connection, but as a n a rena o f
differences linked b y the wil l of proximity and confrontation . This
m ust be seen as the u l timate prod uctive paradox.'We consider the
ideological premises of tl1is project to stil l be valid and we intend
to use them as the new basis of cultura l and political struggle.

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Architecture

The instrument of this project is

architectura l form: the representation and the material ization o f the
boundaries that a rticulate the space of inha bitation . I f a rchitecture
as a n object is only itsel f and its mise en forme, it presupposes a
project - a conjectu re about the organization o f o u r way of living
in the city as a common space. Architectural form, therefore, is
a constituent act that a l ways refers to a politica l idea o f space.
The political is mankind's form o f coexistence. By represen ting the
,b ou ndaries that define coexistence, a rchitectural form inevitab l y
refers to a political vision for the city.

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The Aegean Wo r l d versus th e Roman E m p i re (map of the Aegean A r c h i pelago and an engravi11g of Ron1e,
atthe t i 1ne of August u s , 1 527)

10

Ci t) ( Br t1 s s e 1.. )

Tc) p '1 1<:1 p 11 r e:1 s e Ari tot 1 e 11 o t e:1 11 y

fc)rn1 ca11 l1e im pc>sed <)Jl a11y n1,1 tter; l1efc>re asst1 111ing any fc>rn1,
tl1 e matter a l1ec1dy hold it as a potentit:1l. Tl1 ro t1 gl1 . b eco111 i11g it
gets in to for111 a i1 d the potentia l tt1 rns ii1to fact. If the task of tl1is
project is: the form of the city - Brt1 ssels a s Ca p i ta I o f Eu rope - t<)
understand and acquire the matte r is the prem i se as much as forn1
is tl1e essence, and representation is the potentie:1 l implicatio11 of tl1 e
two. The 1natter is: Brt1 ssels understood a s a n u rban theatre of
differe11ces. In this theatre the di fferences of E u rope are n o longer
an a bst1act geopolitical scenario main l y styled by the stil l relevant
nation-state divi sio11, nor, o n the other hand, by the global flows o f
economy. The differences are the cosmopol itan a n d complex compo
sition of varying c t1 l tu res, pol i tics, commu nities, urban fabrics and
t1rban structu res, mou l ded by the form of the c i ty itself. The social ,
politica l , and c t1 ltural d i fferences in Brussels a re u nparal leled by any
other E u ropea11 city. It is precisely this ret:1 l ity of the city that makes
Brussels the '4idea l '' groL1 n d zero of Europe. I f ''E uropeanness '' ct:1n
only be expressed through '' urbanity'' , then the actual complex form
of Bru ssels is the potential representation - in miniature - of Eu rope.

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We asst1me tl1at the sca l e of

politics wil l be i1either the tota lizing space o f globa l ization, nor the
pattern of nation-states. We believe tl1at tl1e future of politics will
be a ' 'geopolitict:1l '' con frontation betwee11 continents, i11te11ded as
supranational Federa l States, and the ideals they represe11t. In th i s
scena rio Eu rope w i l l play a fu ndamental role l1y l1eing the pol i tica l
alternative to both the t1nilate1alist politics of tl1e u A, and the radical
ca pita list-d1iven devel op1nent of Asia . We view A rc hitecture and tl1e
fo1m of u rban space as potentia l l y fundan1enta l '' e111blen1s'' of tl1ese
geopolitical differences. A Eu ropean i dea of a rchitecture mL1st find its
ideologica l n1otivation not in itse l f, but as a form of oppositio11 to
both the avant-ga rde commercia l i sm and academicism of America n
a rcl1itecture, and to Asia n capita list rea l ism . For this reason we m L1 st
be retrospectively critica l of Eu ropean history in o rder to reinvent its

11

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E u rope at tl1e doors

12

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ft1tt1 1e i11 C<)11tir1 t1 i t)1 \Vi tl1 its 1) c1l itic1l e:1ncl t1 rb,111 1:-11 st. We n1 t1st ''ie\i\'
tl1 e EL11c>pea 11 U11 i <) 11 n <)t e:1 s ' 'c1. 11 <>1--g c.1 s111ic i 11evita l)ili ty",. It ca11 11ot
l1 <1 ppe11 111tt1 ta l l 1 Tl1e feder,1 1 U11 ic)11 of Etlf()pe is 1 h i stor. icc.1 1 process,
e:1 pc) l itic1 l r.r l)ject tl1 a t b,1s L1ee11 defi ned '1 11d choe11, an(i which h<:1 s its
idec>l ogicc.11 r<)t>ts i11 the '' idea of Et1rt)pe ''. Tl1e idec.1 of Euic)pe does
r1c)t coincide witl1 a l inear 11 istory of tl1e co11ti11er1t, f1on1 its origins to
the present. Rc.1 the1, the idea o f Eu1ope as a politicc1l proj ect - its con
vincing pathos - l ies in tl1e s heer strt1 ggle between t1 n ity and m t1 lti
pl icity tl1at has been embod ied d i fferently by each political vision tl1at
<.1 ddressed it.

,,

J.7
H istc)ry and Proj ect

This 1na n i festo does not reflect

011 Et1 rope i n its tota l i ty, but ratl1er attem pts to reinvent it a s a site
of pol itica l, cu ltL1ral , and h i storical i magination. The first part of the
manifesto consists of a critical selection and composition of what
we regard as Europe's hi storica l ''constituent facts'' - a selection
of European arc hetypes - fol lowed by the proj ect of Eu rope, the
form of the city, the political, the formal, and finally the Project
fo1" Brussels as Capital of Europe. Beca use tl1 ese are deli berate and
( h ighly) q uestionable subjective choices, they postul ate the project
that finds i 11 Brussels its u l ti mate representation in the form o f a city.
By intentiona l l y delimiting tl1e 1neaning of E u iope, selection and
composition become the tools for the fa brication of its form. We
oppose this meth od for a constitution of tl1e idea of Eu rope to the
vagueness that today d i l u tes Europe merely as a n open-ended multi
plicity, as a formless geopolitical entity, a s an undefined pl atform o f
events, as an accidental '' mosaic of di fferences '' .

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attern

2. I

Patter11

Europe is a patter11 of itse l f;

co11stantly renovating, reshaping a 11d mediati 11g i ts former u rban
patte1ns, whicl1 a l l descend from the origi nal G1eek a rchi pe lago.
,,
Patterns are the u rlJa11 traces of spatia l orga11ization i n the ci ty,
as they display tl1e a t1gmenting and decreasing e q u i l ibri u m between
citi zens' contri butio11s ( d uties and rigl1ts) and poli tics, imprinted i nto
city form as the spatia l strt1ggle between centre and parts. Son1e ot
them m t1 st be l1ighl ighted for their sign i ficant fu 1 1damenta l principles,
wl1ich a 1..e valid beyond the contextua l factors needed to create them
at first.

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Archipelago

Greek civil ization 11ad as its cradle

the pl1ysical structu re of a conste l l atio11 n1ade of d i fferent islands - an
archipe lago. Its co1nmon identity of power and culture was n urtt1 red
by l i n ks to different colonies; its civic poli tical o rga11izatio11 was
based on individual potential set i n a common h orizon. Tl1ough
restricted to a l i m i ted group of me11 with power, such pol itics, had
a collective process of decision-making tl1at was strictly based 011
individual exp ression. Every Greek city spati a l l y represented tl1e so
c i o-political system as a grot1ped pattern of d i stinct parts: tl1e p u b l i c
spaces of the Agora, the theatre and temples, as opposed to the pri
vate oikoi ( h ouses ) . Tl1e Agora was the space for soc i a l con frontation
and discussion, tl1e theatre and temples for common i maginati on.
We decla re this pattern to be the basis of the European ci ty.
The a 1ch i pel ago i s a mythical figu re for its im n1ed iate l egi bi l i ty
whi le bei 11g made of pa rts: the i s l 1nd-pa rts con cen trate and appoint
each their own specific p lace, w h i le at tl1e san1e time, by virtue of
proxi n1ity, tl1ey esta b l i sh tl1e veritable sea -A1chi-Pelagos of whicl1
they a l l are part.
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Tl1e '1 1c l11pelc.1 g<> represc11t e:1 111 t1l riplicit)1 iii \vl1 icl1 tl1e 111e:1 11 i fold
(or m t1ltiJ..1 l icity itelf) i 11ot dispe1sed, l1 t1t prese11ted i 11 its cc)11ceptt11 l
esse11ce <1S ar1 ll1c)l t1te e11tity an1c)ng part , lJy co111pari so11 1uxtap<> i
tion a11d cou11te1-positi<J11 . The 1 1cl1 i pelt:1go city iep1.. ese11 ts a11 e11se111 ble of disti nct p1rts that together con t1i l1t1te to a p lace t1 nderstood as
co1n111on sedes ( seat ) . The sedes i s no a bsol ute a ffir1natio11 of a ce11 tre
0 1 the e1nergence of a t1 niqL1e reference poi nt, bL1t we may say tl1 a t
"'In the 1nc)bile and changing space of coord inatio11 and co-J1 a b i ta
tion, whicl1 is a l so t l1e se11se of pole1nos (struggle ) , the singularities
of tl1e a1chipelago belo11g to one another. Si11ce the centre is trt1 l y
noth ing except an impett1s that obliges each.part to,transcend itself,
not one part possesses its ow11 centre; a l l p arts navigate towards the
otl1ers, e:1 11d a l l of tl1e m towards the absent fatherland."
( Massimo Cacciari, 1 9 9 7 )

Empire

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The unity a nd cohesion of Rome's

early development ens11red i ts everlasting glory. It was patronage
- a mix of duty and r ights for a l l cives (subjects ) plus a control led
freedom i n a t1 tochthonous cultu ra l heritage - that gave tl1e Roman
government its characteristic blend of democratic form s and oligar
chic control.
Roma Capitt Mitndi: the various parts of the Roman realm were
i ntended to be bound into a massive, mono l ith ic entity by physica l,
organizationa l , and socia l cont1.. ol - a l l referring to Rome's m i l i tary,
pol itica l, economic and cu ltura l hegemony. The physical bonds in
cl uded the network of sto11e-bL1i l t roads, which l i n ked the provi nces
to Rome, as wel l as im pressive engineering infrastructures such as
the aq ueducts, charismatic monuments such as triumphal arches or
public faci l ities like temples, spas, public arenas, and theatres that
- complementing the fora and the basilicae - a lso assumed a propa
gandist intention para l lel to their civic va lue. The orga11izationa l and
social bonds were based on the Latin langu age, common cu rrency,
normative principles of law and administration, and the universal
army of officials who enforced common standards o f condL1ct.

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The city of tl1e infin ite ( p l an of t h e reg i on a round Paris at the end of the eighteenth century, detail)

18

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At tl1e tu1n of tl1e fi rst 1ni l lennil1m

the struggle between secular and tem pora l power - emperor and
cl1 u rcl1 - didn't reach the common people, but did a ffect thei r l ives .
Befo1e rooo A.D., pol itics, culture, ter1itory and po p u lario11 were
extremely detached from each other; they established i nfluential
but iemote li nks due to extreme di screpancies of capa b i l i ties and the
concentration of powe1 in few hands, as wel l as the conce11tration
and preservation of culture i n retrieved shelters. A1monastic geogra
phy was defined across various fragmented l a 11ds by an impressive
network of rel a tively auta rchic cores, based not only on rel igion but
a lso on temporal and eco11omic power, and even tua l l y on a h ighl y
refi ned i n tel lectua l exchange. As a symbiosis of these, wban spaces
were initially built as a inonitored spi l l-over of the monasteries' activ
ity, and the form o f cities gradual ly cha11ged with the socia l/economic
exchange among tl1e p laces that formed the l<nots of the network of
monasteries. Like in an extended a rchi pelago, where the sea i s not
visible, commerce and exchange thrived and obtai ned thei r urban
spaces, carving them out of the b u i lt accumu lations close to the mon
asteries. New points of gravi ty overcame the si ngu l a 1.. ity a11 d created
a l ternative poles of urban coexistence, which gradually defined
themselves as alternative centres of the city and contributed to the
emergence of a third party i n the power struggle: the . nation-state.

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Infinite

F igu ratively represented i n the

frontispiece of the bool<, showing the state-giant made of i ndividuals,
the '' Leviathan or tl1e matter, form a nd power of a common-wea lth
ecclesiastica l and civi l '' ( 16 5 I) was tl1e chief text i n which H ob bes
developed his pol itical thoughts on how society shou l d structure i t
sel f. According to H obbes, men should i nvest their power and rights
i n a sovereign, otherwise they w i l l l ive i n a passionate state of nature,
consta11tly set i n an a ll -agai nst-a l l state of war. By contract, each
individual renounces his natural rights i n order to be u nder the
protection of the sovereign, who secures peace and defence for a l l .
For reasons of stabi l i ty, Hobbes bel ieved hereditary monarchy was

19

E n c lave: harmony and cooperation (a drawing from Robert Owen's Report, 1817)

20

"

111c)St 1eli 1L1le, l)Li t i 11 l1 i s pc) l i ric,1 1 1l1 i l c)s<)pl11 t11e ""S()\'C1eig11 , i .a11
(1 l1s<>1L1te gover11 111e11t" \v l1etl1e1 i 111c>111 1cl1, <:1 1 e pL1l1Jic, 01 ever1 1
d e111OC1'"<1: C)7
Tl1e co11 cept of ,1 L1sol ute g<1ve111 111e11t is deeply e111l)edded i11 tl1e
l1a1oqt1e period as the e11comp<:1 ssi11g way to 110 J d co1nplexity iii 1111ity:
the h L1man knowledge ()f t11e ti111e reacl1ed sucl1 a level that i t sta1ted
to become clear to i11tell ectuals t11at tl1e amou 11 t of d i fferent fields
and the degree of depth each req t1 i red made i t necessa ry to find 11ew
111 ea ns with whicl1 to l1a11 d l e and .rep1esen t them. Th 1 s sort of fear
a l so nL1 rtt1red ba roq ue u rbanism, which sought to build the absol u te
city: perspecti ves, u rban a xes and geometrica l n1oclels d rawing on
scientific tl1eories. M usic and symmetrical compositions structured
the legibil ity of the city fabric, in order to be one with the infinite.
u n folded l ayers of sense and representation of the world and i ts
socjery. The city struggled to be accessible and recognizable to the
people, as deeply as their unde1standing cou l d dive i nto un iversal
meani ngfulness.

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Enclaves

As a reaction to the i ndustrial city,

based on overly special i zed production activity and soc i a l i nequity,
Robert Owen outlined and bu i l t plans for ''cooperative v i l l ages ''
in the early I 8oos where residents would l ive and work i n harmony
within a '' 11ew moral commonwea l tl1 ''. Th is proposa l was composed
of discrete, concentrated patterns of settlement with clear i deas about
dimen sion, organization and social reform, with a focus on agricul
ture. This pattern determined a popu lation of 800 to 1 200 inhabit
ants, and a n effective v i l l age footprint, a l l ocating approxi1nately one
acre of land per person. The bui l t form and the general organ ization
of the settlement were l i n ked di rectl y to comm unity building.
This i ntroverted ideal of a self-sufficient community involving a
synthesis o f town and country and i ts subseq uent soc i a l i m p lications
was tested i n newly bu i l t cooperative v i l l ages. Th i s e11deavour
showed what can occu r when part of the citizenry takes over com
mitment from the rest of society, deliberately ignoring it, wi l l i ng to
fo l l ow di fferent po l itics, detaching itsel f and i ts physical space. Such
dissi dence grasps reali ties that can be managed within d iscrete spaces
that are easi ly i dentifiable to the rest as pol i tica l l y shaped to demon
strate (and hence implement) the advocated scope.
21

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Pattern of streets in the air ( A l ison and Peter S m ithson, a c ity diagram evolved from the G o l den Lane project, 1 952)

22

Pla11

After the Seco11d World War,s

t1rban reconstruction was completed, governme11ts establ ished new
spati al pol icies aimed a t large-sca le constructions accessible to a l l .
They were concerned with c(eati ng a persuasive image of the ft1ture
city and achieving a massively d i ffused welfare status: technocrats
were appointed to ret h i n k l i fe, labour, and leisure throug h the
optimal organization of the social environment. Urban design i n
the existing city, a imed at preserving i ts h igh density and form, was
used to combat the d i ffusion o f decentralize d met;6politan regions.
Young a rchi tects such as those affiliated with Team ro were in
deed challenged and fasci nated by the metamorphosis of the worki ng
class i nto the middle c lass. I n their projects they attempted to n1edi ate
between a tech nocratic approach and a utopian attitude: studies o n
dj strict units stretched to research the city and i ts territory. The inter
est focused on rea l i ty-as-found and its local context, i n order to en
hance the sense of place. Real i ty was not the ideali zed utopias of geo
metrical compositions proposed by the first generation of modernists;
the existing l iving patterns and city fabrics were to be transformed,
not wiped out and repl aced by something shiny. The Smith sons used
the p hrase '' h ierarchy of human associatio n '' to describe how a sense
of p lace i s created though tl1e h ierarch ies of '' the hot1se, the street, the
district, and the city'' . And, for instance, their Golden Lane proposal
( 19 5 2 ) was a l a rge, i rregular, snaking, ten-storey-high residential
slab-block with wide elevated streets, designed to be i n serted into
the existing urban fa bric. The i ntention was to create a network of
buildings l i n ked by elevated pedestrian routes i n a three-dimensional
city structure. I n the meantime - as a result of ful l employment, rising
wages and i ncreasing holiday provisions - a split between the i n hab
itants and producers of the built environment was comi ng to the fore,
'but i ts most worry i ng s i de was the paral lel worki ng-c l ass depol jtici
zation as a response to the i ncrease i n bureaucracy.
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23

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Razor wire as cont inuous mon u m ent (the border between Ceuta and Morocco)

24
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Tl1e 111(le:1 ni11g of bordeJs beca111e

a 111 atte1 of exterior and i 11terior identity; the more tl1ey mu l tipl ied
- shifting from geopol i tical 1natters i n to soci etal aspects and sca b
rousness - the n1ore tl1ey became ubiquitous. Tl1ere's an actual
discrepancy in tl1e ro les of tl1e i nner and outer borders of Eu rope,
especially i n the way they act. Today, tl1is situation has culminated in
a constantly u11 balanced Europe, forever on the brink of borde1land
and fort1ess with i n a fortress.
,,
The effect of the Sch engen agreement was the creation of a
E uropean feeling, enhancing professional and cu ltural exchange.
B ut at the same ti1ne Schengen p roposed a sham peace - i nco1nplete,
based only on economy. I n reality, th i s negates the identity of Europe
on two levels: on one hand i n ternally, by preventing the friend/enemy
integration of normal citizens and immigrants on a daily basis; on
the other hand i nternationally, by exacerbating Europe's a ntagonist
position without rea l l y being effective.
G iven a condition of permanent i nsecurity, the q uasi-war has
a disaggregating effect on the civil peace of European societies,
p rompting racist reactions, not only towards foreigners and genera
tions of integrated foreigners, but also among a utochthonous
E u ropeans.
It i s d i fficult to keep such a pol itics of fear and insecurity u nder
contro l . El ementary forms of protection of civ i l r ights a re threatened
for both the outsiders and the insiders. To acknowledge that the
European i dentity i s intrinsic to its l1 isto1ica l process o f integration
towards and against the other turns E urope from a mere territorial
and economic definition into a proj ect for a sta ble civil common ref
erence.

25

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3 .1

Struggle

We don't have to be a fraid to

recognize that tensio11 is the ground zero of Europe. E t1 rope sta rted
as the consciousness of a tension between the East and the West. This
tension is the real soul of Eu rope, its pol itical sine qua no11. We don't
have to be a fraid that conscio usness of being Et1ropea11 arose with
the challenge of the Islamic worl d . After a l l , Europe has no original
1neaning, but has always needed an external incentive in order to
exist. The essence of Europe exists outside of Europe i tsel f.
The call for a Crusade to the Holy Land pronounced by Pope
Urbanus II (I 09 5 ) provoked the i deological acknowledgement of
being E uropean in the face of Islamic civilization. With the first
Crusade, Eu1.. ope stopped being only geography and beca me
ideology. The i nherent ideology of Eu rope i s Christianity : ''D ie
Christenheit oder E uropa, Christianity i d est Eu ropa '' , as E urope
was identified by Nova l is. Not Christianity simply as mode of tran
scendental bel ief - as mere worship - but Christianity as coexistence,
with confrontation and solidarity as i ts foundations. Christianismus
and Christianitas origina l ly were i n fact inte llectual definitions of
Europe and turned i nto actual territorial l i mi ts against the non
Christian world with the first Crusade. The violent spirit of the
Crusade aga inst the Muslims transformed confrontation into
''clash of civilizati o n '' and solidarity into mili tary coa lition. Yet
aga inst this understanding of confrontation and solidarity - sti l l
active today - we have to oppose their civili zed version as political
debate: a form of agreement between incompatib le ways of inter
preting the world.
Indeed, Et1rope as Project is the transformation of the agreement
between i rreconcilable v iews on the world into a political i nstitution.
This a lso means tak i ng a stand against t he i deology of the '' melting
pot'' and political neutra l ity as the outcome of homogenous multi
p l icity. Now Europe incorporates what was meant to be outside,
and what from o utside triggered its identity: the other. The other
does not share the roots of E uropean identity, that is Christianity

26

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and E11l ighten 111e11t, and it doe 11ot 11ece (ltil)' '"1gree \\1itl1 tl1e i 11. tiru
tio11al co11seqt1e11ces of t1cl1 ide11tit)1 ( the st1te, de111c)c11cy, plt1 ra li s ni ) . St i l 1 its pres e 11 ce and eve 11 its <) b j ec ti <) 11 to Europe is the 111 i 1 1 <) r
in wl1 icl1 Et1 rope ce1: 11 recogn ize itself.
J

3.2

Borders

Europe has existed since the

q uestion of i ts borders began. Towards the west, the border i s sharp
becat1se of natt1 ra l conditions, but towards the east the l i ne i s constantly moving. D t1e to thi s continuously eastward movement, i t is
p reposterous to c lassify Europe as a pol itical territory. Eu rope is not
defined by borders: i t can only be considered as the border between
East and West. The role of border between the Western and the
Eastern world i s tl1e u ltimate step i n a p rocess that has shaped the
mutable political and cultural form of Europe. This process began
centuries ago when Europe confronted the East i n m i l i tary combat.
Subseq uently, i t obtai ned a statt1s that disti nguished i t from the other
peninsulas of Eurasia: China, South-East Asia and India.
It seems that the border between East and West is a political
l ine, while the border between North and South i s an economic l i ne.
Even more, now that the world order has come to be shaped by eco
nomic laws rather than by pol itical decision, the east-west division
can no l onger be co11stituted only by one pol itical l ine. And thanks
to the i ncrease of imm igration i nto urban centres, the European
borderland is no l onger the nomos of the land, or the territorial
l i m i ts of these nation-states. We are clearly not l i v i ng on the edge
of a sin1 p l e borderl ine, but i n the m idst of an i ncreasingly compound
and ubiquitous border that esta b lishes unmediated contacts with
virtual l y a l l parts of the world ( Ba l i ba r, 200 4 ) This i s a ''world
border'' that has specific ''European'' properties, such as confron
tation and solidarity.
The proverbial European city, with i ts concentration of different
cu ltures in the same place, i s the ultimate manifestation of the border.
The city as a com position of borders i s the representation of struggl e
a mong identities, a stage for diversity, and a materi a lization of the
in-between. It i s thus the alternative pol itical space to the borderless
and apo l i tical space of globalization. The pol itical ambition of this
p roject is not to make the real i ty of borders an object of 1ncompre

27

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War has formed Eu rope (the academy of M unich in ruin after the bombing, Herbert Li st, 1 946)

28

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.

l1er1sio11 <>1 C<)t1cer11, l1 L1t t< > t1se l1t)1ciers i s e:1 11 i 11st1t1 111e11t c>f c L1 lt.t1ra l '
prog1es a rid a starti11g poi 11t for tl1e i 11ventic>11 <)f ne\v 1ep1ese11t,1ti o11
<Jf tl1e ci ty.

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. The fo rmc1tion of Europe i s 11ot

the product of pacific agreements. We ni L1st assume that the proj ect
of E11 rope i s the prod uct of exterior and interior stft1ggle, as wel l
as the outcome of deci sions i nstead of norms, of exceptions instead
of rules, of conflicts i 11stead of agreements, of d i fferences i 11stead
of consistencies. This i s why we m L1 st dare to rea l i ze that the early
productive force of E u 1ope was the brL1ta l i ty of war. The foL1 ndations
of pol itica l Europe re l y on tl1e constant feel ing of a concealed wa r,
and on tl1e po l i tics of equili bri un1 between m i l i tary power, religious
tolerance, and econo m ic expansion that were the determinant
factors of the nation-state pattern. Witl1i n this equilibrium, by bei ng
opposed to the others, each of tl1e nation-states - intended as mag11i
homines - was a lso recogn izing the other as ji1stits hostis: as enemy.
This relationship allowed each i1ation to concretely define itse l f and
cla i m i ts own tangi ble legitimacy. Thus, conflict i s the source of
Eu rope's pol itica 1 eq11 i l i br i t1 m .
Eu rope is t1nthinkable withot1 t the 1nemory o f the cruel conflicts
that shaped it. It i s val uable to remember Carl Schmitt, wl1 0 stated
that the i n vention o f tl1e state presupposes the concept of the politi
ca l , hence the creation of an i nstituti on i s not a g ive11 ratio, b t1 t rather
the i rrational h t1 man instinct for strtiggle, belief, and organ ization.
Today we must say that the i nvention of Europe i mpl ies the refusal
of the national state, which in our terms nleans the constant reminder
of the h i sto1ical i nception of Europe as a co l l i sion of states rather
than of integration.
The task of a contemporary proj ect of Eu rope i s to project and
civi l i ze this h istorical identity with i n the ideological fabric of today's
potential pacific coexistence. It i s compu lsory to no longer embrace
the pattern of conflict as geopol itical warfa re, but to see it as civic
struggle.

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3 .4

Pea - e

The project of Et11ope is esse11tia l l y

a C<)n j ectu re of peace. I f tl1e ideological initi<:1 ti o11 of E t1 rope has bee11
i ts confro11 tation wi tl1 the ot1 tside, today tl1e co11 f1ict is from witl1 i 11 .
O pposite to tl1e wa1fare essence of tl1e nati()t1 -state, Et1 ropean peace
started as geopolitical h ope, and ended as a 11 econo1n ic achievement,
a 11 agreement ba sed on the trad i ng of coa l and steel.
Federal ism - an Anglo-Saxon poli tical invention 0 1igina lly in
tended as a pragmatic forn1 of governance - was turned into a politi
cal ma11 i festo by A l tiero Spi ne l l i . We resurrect the pol itica l visio11 of
E urope endorsed by Spinel l i , precisely when Europe l1as lost its credo
due to its economic raiso11 d 'etre. Applying a pragmatic understand
i 11g of Federalism, Spinel l i considered peace to be the fo undation of
economic prosperity. H i s a tte1npt to construct Et1 rope as a transna
tio11al pol i tical subject tt1rned peace into an existential and civi l i zed
confrontation with the otl1er: Federa l i s 1n i s not unaffected by peace
between states.
I f the federal ist project of E L1 rope questions the problematic
existence of the nati on-state a s a legiti mate po l itical institL1 ti on,
than the core of federa l i s1n is not i nsi de the natio11 -state but beyond
tl1 e nation-state. For th is reason, i n our opin ion, peace is no longe1
a 11 opportunity, but an ideology.
The ideology of peace chal l enges the existing regime of l i beral
democracy, by p reventing economic prosperity as the ultimate insti
tution of agreement where, in the end, pacific coexistence is a banal
option, a iel ative factor.
The ground zero of E u rope m ust be the pure i deology of peace,
rega rdless of its economic conven ience. Paci fic coexistence i s neither
the narcissism of good i n tentions nor a blend o f d ifferences unde1
one single uni versa l '' be l ief'' . Tl1ere is nothing to believe in E u rope,
i t is only to l ive in, but eagerly. This enta i ls the ulti mate paradox:
how ca n the friend/enemy E uropean essence be reduced to peace ?
Th is is the crucial q uestion rega rding Europe, and the response i s
that the1e i s no answer. The proj ect of Et1rope, and therefore the
project of Brussels as Capital of Europe, addresses the confrontation
of i rreducible ways of l iving, believing, drawing up agreements
among d i fferent communities. Conf1ontatio11 m ust be seen a s a
collective institution, and i n order to support i t, individual poli t ica l
responsi b i l i ty 1nust be ievived as an active ieaction against the
routine h abits of mass social behaviours .
30

the se l f-c)rgan i z i 11g conseqt1e11ce of i11frastrL1ct111e, bL1 t as tl1e tangi l)le

traces of i 11 te11tio11s, desi1es a 11 d proj ects towards possible co11figt1ra
tions of ways of l iving - m t1 st be seen as the l oct1s c)f Europe. The
d ramatic diversity of Eu1opean url1anities is not compa rable to a11y
other continent. Tl1 is i s the positi.ve evidence of l1ow Europe, as a
place, i s the rest1 l t of the struggle between d i ffe rent ideas, o rders and
perspecti ves that a re always in ago11 ism with each f>ther. Yet today,
antagoni s1n is potenti a l l y erased on the 011e hand by the reciprocal
- totally auti stic - d isregard between fragments st1ch a s gated co1n1nunities, business di stricts, and social ghettos aestheticized by L1 rl1an
1n appings of the contemporary city; and on the other hand by the
pl ura listic funda me11tal i sm p1opel led by neo-l i beral consumer cultu1e
such as tl1e s u bur ban sprawl ideology adopted in contemporary re
searches and representations of the city, such as Superdutch second
modernity, and American New Urbanism.
I nstead of starting from a single geopol itical perspective, the
P1oject of Europe must start from an omni-comprehensive u1ban per
spective: from its asset as a soci a l l y and politica l l y constructed place.
Instead of fal l i ng apart into the false (and useless ) dialectic between
global and l oca l , the city m t1st be seen as City - as e nacting space of
tangible, experiential d ifferences that share a common, i dentifiable
stage of representation: the a rchitectural a rtefact. Arch itectu re in the
form of l a rge-sca le punctual i nterventio 11s - i n j ections with a big nee
dle - can offer i tself as the provider of sym bolic space. We are agai 11st
spectac11 lar interventions that are only seen within their sel f-referen
tia l appea1ance, s11ch as Bi l bao- l i ke architourist landmarks. I nstead,
we propose urban a rtefacts that a re capable of 1eframing the existing
city, of artic11 l ating its patterns and accesses, of celebrating its collec
tive rituals of public l i fe.
These new a rtefacts must be l a rge i n sca l e yet modest i n form.
Like in the Middle Ages - when Europe sta rted to become aware o f
i tsel f a11d incarnated this awareness in Romanesq L1 e arch itecture we aga in see a rchitectu re as the rendering of a continenta l consciot1s
ness that takes fo11n in a new, vast, and si lent mont1menta l i ty. I f the
in tricacy and weakness of Europe with i n the actua l geopo l i tical
project of the Eu ropean Union fi11ds its urban and a rchitectural
eq u i valence in the contempora ry value-free pluralism of a rchitect111al

31

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U r ba n ization versus the city

32

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sr les tl1t:1 t celebrates Eur()pe(1 11 11ess C=l S e;1 ge11 e1ic pl1tf<)1111, tl1e11 tl1e
11e\\' 111 011 u 111e11te:1 l ity pr<)posed l1) t)lt t pr<)jecr for B 1t1ssels as Capitc1 J
t1f f t1rope is tl1e 1eve1se a tten1pt to i 1nple111e11t the idea of E t1 rope
th1-ot1gh e1: si111 1)le l) tl t recogn iza l)le fc11111a l gr1 111 111ar. A1cl1 itectL1 re
as 1 symbolic <:1 1ena is the new entry p<>int to the P roject of Et1 rope.
1 11 01de1 to reartict1 l a re the inte 1action betwee11 a 1..ch itectti re a11d the
idea of Eu rope in st1cl1 a way, we mt1st first rewrite the idea of the
city i tsel f.

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The City versus UrlJanization

By the end of the twe11tieth

centu ry, what was k nown as the city dissipated into a generic sea of
u rbanization. Growth statistics of t1rbanization replaced the metro
pol itan consciot1sness that once formed tl1e u rban ideals of great
1netropolises. The city is 11ow a mall, w here p l t1 ra l ism and diversity
are prior features of its fo rm. Decades ago, the city was the theatre of
pol itical debate and class co11 f1ict; whereas today, as the 111 iddle class
grows., i t is a <l L1 1n b backdrop to mass servitude towa rds the apolitical
democracy imposed by the market. Facing thi s real ity, we need to
reform u late an i mage for the city form aga inst the total izing space
of urbanizatio11.
By city form, we mean an architectural contri butio11 that insti ls a
sense of belonging in. i ts inhab i tants, an idea that is eml)odied by tl1e
city itse l f i n its collecti ve spaces. By urbanization, we mean the gener
ic habi tat of a bsol t1 te individualism based on the supremacy of mo
b i l i ty. A neologism i 11 vented by Ildefonso Cerda in r 8 6 7 ii1 h i s book
Gene1"al Theory of Vrbanizatio1z, u rbanizatio11 means aggregation
of i n l1 a bitable t111 its boL1nd together by the phenomena o f mobility.
Urbs is the relationship between the di fferent flows that animate any
l1 u man ha bitat. With the devel opment of infrast1ucture as the prima
ry core of m odern cities, the understanding of the h L1 m a 11 settlement

33

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1 s 111/Js - l si111p1c G1 gg1ege:1 tic>11 ( ) f cl isco11 r1ected t1 11 its l i 11keci t<)getl1 e1

l1),. tl1e C<J11 t1c)lled flows of r11c)L1il ity - 111 tised tl1e city as an <)Utlet of
econo1nic develop111 ent wl1ere social practices are exclt1sive1y devoted
to the C}1cle o f prodt1ctio11 a 11d const1 mption. Today the 11oti ()n o f
it1t'hs 1nust not be sc)lely considered as the 111atter of fact of tl1e city as its i 11 disput<:1 ble produ ctive 111ac h i nery wl1ere technol ogy i s the
neutral grou11d of city development towards the better. The emphasis
on urbani zation as the only p1econdition for ''cityness'' int1 st be
understood today ( especially as a sym ptom of the l i mitation of tl1e
meaning of inhabiting the city ) within the horizon of econ omic op
portunities with no space left for what m t1st be seen as the potenti al
main antagon ist force to economy: political action. 1 11 opposition to
the concept of urbanization as the ulti1nate fate o f the city, we raise
the concept of civitas . Civitas is the symbolic agreement o f a commu
nity to share space, thus developing civic coexistence. I f as matter of
fact, civitas and urbs can and shot1 l d coexist as balanced factors of
the city; as i11atters of concer11, they must be intended as opposing
meanings of h u ma 11 inha bitation. Tl1e opposition between civitas and
itrbs, between city and urban ization, is represented by the potential
opposition between cjrizen and individual .

Citizen versus Bourgeois

The apparently '' old '' d isti nction

betwee11 the bourgeois and the citizen can be seen today as the
difference between the individua l , who seeks l1is exp1..ession i n urba11ization, and the citizen member, who consci ously participates in a
collective way of l iving. Yet even more bluntly, this d istinction i s
carried by the sharp di fference between urbs and civitas, individt1 a l
and citizen, urbanization and city. Although this division i s noticed
by academics, i t is not performed by a lert citizens anymore. The indi
vidual inhabits urbanization by the pursuit of his or her desi res of
sel f-satisfaction and mobi l i ty, without any consideration for the col
l ective di mension of the city i 11 w h ich cohabitation demands respon
sibi lity at1d confrontation. The citizen defines h i s des i res by ta king
i nto account the space of h uman coopera tion and solidarity, seeing
it as the u l ti mate meaning of city coexistence - as what city means
precisely i n opposition to urban i zation.

34

4.3

"'

c()existe11ce i nevita b l y ;en ta i l s tl1e

composition of the ci ty. City orde1 is created wl1en tl1e in tel l igibility
of u rba11 form generates mental and physica l access i b j l ity of pu blic
space. Accordi ng to this we 1ject the fash ionable rhetoric concerni ng
tl1 e complexity, fragrnentation, cl1 aos and sprawl of t1 rba11 space.
Tl1 o ugh these co11ditions a re l atent i n the contemporary city and in
r1eed of c1itical attention, tl1eir representation and celebration is often
syn1ptomatic of tl1e arcl1 i tect, planner, and pol itici#tn's uncritica l s ur
render to the d ictatorship of the inarket over the c ity.
We conceive the projection of urban order, intended as the acces
sibil i ty to public space, as i ntrinsica l l y connected to the right of citi
zenship. U rban o rder itself must be perceived by the inhabitants as
consti tutive of thei r citizenship. As i t is unth i n kable that a practical
i ty such as l anguage is inaccessible to some, so i t must be t1 ntl1 inkable
that the public spaces that make the city are not pote11tia l l y accessi b le
to its inhabitants.

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Citizenship is practicing the right

to participate i n collective rituals and to gain access to public spaces.
Public space m ust be seen not as the defa u l t space between the vested
interest of econom ic proj ecti ons within the city, but as pol i tical spa ce.
Political space becomes public when i t is not imposed upon b y the
i mpersonal mechanism of state sovereignty or the '' automatic domi
nation of the ma rket '' , but whe11 i t i s constituted by the civic practice
of citizenship, consisting o f the possib i l i ty of e11counter, debate,
and civic conflict. The emergence of political space i s implicated i n
the very i dea of '' pu blicness'' that, thought i n the form of a j uridical
representation sucl1 as the spaces of pu blic institutions, is a lways
artict1 lated in a concrete geography of ''places'' . The access to these
places is what concretel y defines the sense of people's bel ongi ng to
the col l ective 1itual of i nhabiting the common space of the city.

35

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The cancer of b u reaucracy (d i s persal offi ce space i n B r u s s e l s )

36

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4. 5

T11e

Eu

e:1 n d tl1e Cit\'

Tl1e 111a 11 11e1 i 11 \vl1 icl1 tlie i11stitL1rions of tl1e E t1 1c)pea n U11io11 have deve1 oped is clearly in ir1ored
l1y tl1eir cu 1rent physical t:1 ppeara11ce a 11 d spatial config11 ratio11 i n
Brt1ssels and tl1e other cities hosting .Et1ropean i 11 stitutior1s. From
tl1e fo rmati o11 of the Unio11 in r 9 5 r ., witl1 the foL1 ndation of the E C S C ,
l bsol utely 110 official plan and nq debate has ever existed 1ega 1d ing
11ow to represent the i 11 stitutions of the E U u rbanistically and archi
tectura l l y. It is t1 nmista l<ably visible that, in. the abence of clear
intentions abot1t the iepresentation of i nstitutions., for tl1e most
part purely econo m ic tl1oug11ts became th e domina11 t force i n the
i nstal lation of tl1ese i nstituti ons within the city.
For a l ong tin1e, the physical development and expansion of
the Eu ropean institutions ( Parl iament, Co1nmissi on, Cot1nc i l ) was
11a 11dled as a si mple matter of square met1es of office space. In this
context, beginning in the 1 9 80s, a process of subu rba11 i zation was
initiated whereby the pre1n ises of the Eu ropean instituti on were
dislocated from the city centre to the periphery, thereby fol lowing
the syndicate offices of tl1e finance and insu rance compan ies - a
process clearly visible i n Luxem bourg on the I< i rch berg platea u .
Optin1a l access i b i l i ty, flexi bil ity for growtl1 scena rios and security
were the primary issues, which inade peripheral locations prefera l)le
to tl1ose in tl1e city centre ( examples include tl1e Eu ropean Court of
Ju stice, the Com1n ission's Jean-Mon net Building and tl1e Cou rt of
A t1 d i tors ) . The cu rrent planned d islocatio11 of the E uropea11 Ce11 tra l
Banl< from tl1e ce11tre of Frankfu rt to the eastern suburbs can be con
sidered a recent example of this phenomenon . The pu b l is hed render
ing of the winni ng competition entry paradigmatical ly visuali zed the
separation of the i nstitt1tion fro111 the city, connected only by n1eans
of in frastructu re.
Over the years, with the expansion of the E U , the Brussels Capital
Region became a relevant part of tl1e EU-wide rea l-estate market.
S ince then the u rban pla11ning and a rchitectura l appearance of
Brussels and the E U has been left to the rea l-estate market, and profit
oriented deve lopers. While in constant competiti on with the other
potentia l '' capita l cities'' ( incl uding Strasbourg, Luxembourg,
Frankfurt), i n order to settle as many economica l ly attractive institu
tional bodies as possi ble, the governments of Brussels and Belgium,
as the responsil1le planning autl1orities, have been w i l l i ng to mainta i n

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38

tl1 1 atrr(1cti ve cli1nc.1 te fc >1 11ew i 11v ctn1e11t.

U 11 ti ] 1ece11 tl )' tl1e E u , 1 tl1e <)tl1er 111<:1 j <)t p<:1 rty i 11 vo I vecl, did 11c)t
111 \'e tl1e '1 111 biti o11 t<) set tip c.1 ctive gt1 i de l i 11e fc)1 tl1ei r represenr,1 tic>11 .
Despite tl1e i n1 111ense 11eed fo1 spe:1 ce, tl1ei1 prern i es were t1st1ally
le<:1 sed . Tl1eir c1iteria e1nphasized ft1ncti o11 a l i ty and 'iecurity; loca l
c.1 11 d 1egior1al l)L1i l de1 l1eca111e the architects of tl1e me) st i tn porte:1 11t
EL1ropea n i nsti tutio11 s . Tl1e most exemplary i n this regard is tl1e
Et1 1opean Parl ian1ent at the Place d u L11xe1n bourg in Brt1 ssels. Tl1 e
design of t l1e aichitecture is ind isputal)ly mediocre; i ts 4 00,000 rn.:i.
co tnplex da tes back to the r 9 8os. O ffici a l l y, it was declared a conven
tion centre, therefore requ iring no public tender a nd avoiding the
i11evitable debate about its arcl1 i tectural ieprese11tation.
A cross-section th1ougl1 the buildir1gs of the EU revea ls that they
ha1dly d iffer from the typica l corporate head q t1arters or office b u i l d
i 11gs of the economic sector. Thei r ta rget values, sucl1 as transparency,
communications, efficiency and sta b i l i ty, dege11e1ate into the generic
stc)ry of corporate enterprise architectt1 re. Their a rcl1 i tectu ral style
eclectical ly t1ses laminated glass curtai n wal l s c1nd tl1 i n natL1ral sto11e
cladding elements, attempti ng to ex11de a grand a i r of tin1es gone by.
Parking access, fire exi ts, service a 11 d plant rooms t1sually occupy
tl1e street level; g1ou11 d floors with entirely b lind fac;ades are not
exceptio11s. il1 the Leopold Quarter i n B1ussels, the impact of tl1ese
mechan isms i s i 111med iately apparent. In j Ltst a few decades, this
formerly bourgeo is residentia l qua1ter has been tra11sformed into a
homoge11 eot1 s centra l business d istrict, equivalent to the per ipheral
greenfield devel opments .. Cancerous, context-less masses of mono
fu11cti onal bui ld i ngs a 1e expand ing between the car-dominated
st1eets of the Leopol d Qua rter, devoi d of l egi ble form. The sca le
of the buildings 11as grown to tl1at of the street blocks and beyond.
Wl1 at bel ongs to the building is usua l l y identifiable only from a n
aeri a l perspective. Quantitative enlargements of institutions were
carried out by expanding into additional b l ocks and premi ses,
arbitrari ly scattered over tl1e q t1 a rter. I t fol l ows that fi11 a l ly, at the
end of this a d-hoc development, the document presented today as an
o ffici a l plan for the Eu ropean Q uarter in Brussels ( 01nbudsplan!P/an
Mediateur, 2003 ) consi sts of several hun dred unavoidable actions.
It remains a general suspicion that this plan w i l l not provide an an
swer to any of the fu ndamental questions.
I t i s from this starting point that the project for Brussels
- which we propose - attempts to go beyond the i nsufficiencies of
the present condition. It aims to address the a bsence of i magination

39

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in

B russels)

40

14

'1 1 1 d 1e)rese11 t1ti<>11 11)1 1ecc )11ceprt1;;1 J i zi11g rl1e J)I.<>ject t ) f E t 1 1cl ptc1 11

ii1 tegre:1 tt <)ll 1 <.1 prc)ject f< >1 tl1e city <>f B1t1 sse1s.

4.6

Arcl1ipelag<)

'

The act of defini 11g tl1e geog1apl1y

of pul1lic cc) l l ecti ve spaces is tl1e ve1y act of 1na k i 11g the ci ty. We define
tl1e geography of t11e city as an archi pelago. At"chipelago ( a rcl1 i -pela
gos ) l i teral ly means '' sea par excellence''; it co11ta ins a g1o up of
islands, clearly disting11 isl1able frorn one ariotl1er, yet each havi 11g a
st1ongly identi fiable character a11d appearance; sur1ounded by a 11eu
tral sea that holds them and forms a compositio11 that represents, i n
1ni 11iatt1 re, a 11 idea of the entire world. Applied to the idea of the ci ty,
tl1e a rcl1 i pelago means a discrete concentration of city pa rts clearly
i dentified or identifiable as an urban artefact that can imply by its
simple di mensional defi n ition a clearly bot1 nded a rea of i 11 tervention.
D iscrete conce11tration 1neans that th ese island-parts are not si n1ply
scatte1ed according to tl1e flows of mobil i ty, individualization,
and their infrast1uctu ral a11 d network consequ ences that define the
te1rito1y as an agglomeration of capsules, b t1 t that they are moved
by a po l i tica l impetus that transcends and invests them with the se11se
of '' moving'' towa rds a centre tl1at they all m iss. TJ1 i s cent1e i s the
very i dea of tl1e city conceived as the co111position of compli mentary
d iffe1en ces.
To t1s, the basic concept of the project o f B 1u ssels Ca pita] City
of E u 1ope is to address t11e city as an archipelago of centra l i ties in
the form of d i fferent but complementary a rtefacts. They are botl1
the stage and tl1e representation of Eu ropean institutions, l1ut a lso
housing t1nits ( si nce what Brussels lacks i n o rder to beco111e a credible
capital city of Eu rope i s l1ousing ) . The col lective artefacts a re p10posed as ''pa rts '' of the city, and at the same time as exem plary of it.
These col lective artefacts di alectica lly engage the existing geography
of Brussels as a city that more than any other European city has
developed as a land of pol itica l, social, and urban d iffe1ences that '"1 re
i 11co1npatible. Tl1erefore, we have to look at tl1ese d i fferences not as
an indu lgent surrea list col lage, or as a col lection of frag111ents, but as
the very possibi l i ty of making B russels a veritable represe11tation of
Europe. The fo l lowing analysis of Brussels must be seen as an act of
composing a pol itical scenario for the capita l of Eu1ope.
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41

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5. I

Capital City

The role o f capital in vests a city

witl1 a vocatio11 a l weight, implying bt1 i lt rhetoric. Pol itical prese11ce
n1ust use a specific architectural expression .to sti111al ate civic partici
pation and inspire a co1n 111 on fo11d11ess through 11 rban experience.
'' Natio11 a l capita l s '' summarize i n their own urban body the i deologi
cal strategies of the power used to control the natio11; '"c11 ltt1ral
capitals'' become such a fter a mo1e discontin11 0 11 s historical develop
ment, col lecting tl1e traces of s11 l)seque11 t pol itics, thougl1 mai nta ining
a stro11g re latio11 sl1 ip to the territory despite changes in time. So1ne
capitals, the ''trad itiona l '' ones, a re elected by vox populi together
with the esta b l i s h 1nent and have permanently perfo rmed as the
11eading c i ty for the nation; the '' artific i a l capita l s '' l i ke Ber l i 11 or
St. Petersburg are chose11 as best political seat even i f other cities of
the co11 11try dominate i t eitl1er n1orally, economically or for stro11ge1
reasons. Event11ally 1hetoric can build ideals i 11 to capitals, p roviding
the for1n to a mbitiot1s pol itical p roj ects either from a sheer tabula
re:1 sa, or by applying a n i mage sul)stitutio11 of former power to create
a cutting-edge l1 istorical condition, a rea l legend for the new com
mencement of the nation.

5.2
Natic)nal Capi ta l

When Louis Napoleon assumed

power in r 8 4 8, he was deep ly anxious to be seen as a worthy ruler.
He wanted to change the role of tl1e capital from the cu stomarily
011e it had for i ts citizens into a more nationa l ly representative one.
For that reason, he needed a man of a uthority a11d energy to lead
the cha 11ge of the c i ty; Georges Eugene Ha ussmann ( 1 80 9 - 1 89 1 ) ,
a pol iceman, became responsible for tl1e transformation of Paris
between 1 8 50 and I 870. The city acqt1 i red its paradigmatic form
as the capital of the n ineteenth centt1 ry. Napoleon and Ha ussma nn

43

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44

r:e

\\1 e1e 111ti<)t11 l i rs \ 11 <1 l1el ieved F 1<:1 11ce sl1c>t1 I d lee:1d de,relc>p111 ent
i 11 EL1 1ope -Pt-1 1is sl1c>t1 ld l1e tl1e ct:1 pital c>f tl1e \'\'01ld, tl1c l1 ei1- c>f
1 11cie11 t Rc>111e.
D t1 1i11g the p1efectL1re of H 1 L1ss111c.1 11 11, <:1 11 L1r1 1iv(1l led l1 t1 rld i 11g
ancl st1eet 1egt1 l ,1 1ization p1og1,1 111111e \V<.1 S i;la1111ed a 11d i 111ple111ented.
Tl1e i;Ja11 11ing of tl1e cit)' was c1 pprot-1 ched e:1 s 1 ln 1ge-scale transporte:1 tion pr<)blem. An i 11vento1y o'f streets was cond t1cted, co11sidering
the1n one l)y one and creati 11g 11ew streets by c11 tti11g tl1rough city
blocks. Expropriation peaked in J 8 66 wl1e11 8 4 8 p rope1ties were
den1olished. By cutti11g 11ew st1eets throt1gh the inte1io1s of city
b locks, it was possi ble to create new buildings on l:Joth sides, as sim
ply widen i ng an existi ng street wou l d n1ean that the old b u i l d i 11gs on
one side would be retained, lowering the value of the new properties
on the other side. There was no overal l master plan, yet this s i ngle
oppottu11 istic strategy fi 11a l ly s t1mn1arized, in a common urban
design, the di fferi ng i nterests of l andowners, pol ice officets and
the need for urban decor. 1 11 addition, many p t1 bl ic b t1 i 1 d i ngs were
erected and a number o f remarkable parks created . P t1 b l ic garden i ng
asst1 med S tich a 11 impo1ta11ce tl1at, begi n 11 ing from very l ittle green
space i n r 8 5 0, t l1e city advanced to a park system tl1at was unpara l
leled with i 11 continental E t1 rope by r 8 7 0.

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Rome was appointed to be the

ca pita ! city of the new K i ngdom of Ital y i n r 8 6 r even l)efore being
part of it. The city 11ad to wa it (n c)t without certa in farsigl1 ted chang
es i n land ownersh i p ) for i ts new landlord to fi rst conqt1er it i n r 8 70.
At that ti 1ne the city was extremely poor and co1npletely lacked tl1e
i nfrast1uctu res and civic assets that were co1nmon i n other E u ropean
capita l cities; i t 11ad 1ema ined i 11 tl1e state portrayed by G . B . Nol ] i
on l1i s fa mous map ( 1 7 4 8 ) , as em pty and ft1 ll o f gra11diosity as i n
Piranesi 's vedttte.
1 11 1 8 8 3 the new ca pita! acq uired a plan, a l beit a miserable one.
In the a bsence o f any vision - eitl1er i n frastrt1ctt1 ral or ideologica l the identificatio11 of the i tnage of the new capital with the Rome of
tl1e past happe11ed instinctively, as expected. The new k ing had n o
interest in transform i ng the set of a rchitectu res and spaces provided
by the past, 11e preferred to acco1nmodate new b u i l d i ngs with i n tl1ese

45
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Social Capital (Vienna, Karl Marx Hof, Karl E h n , 1 927)

46

l) LI i 1 t 1 de() l o g i L e1: I e:1 et s . 0 11 ce a g<.l i 11 e:1 t , l 11 s IL1 ti< J i111fJ e , i p 1 c> ve d tJ1 1 t
the C<)11st1n1 pti()Il <1f 1e111 1 1ka l1le t1 1 l)ar1 <1 cl1i eve111 et1ts fro111 tl1e p<1st
p1ovide eter11e:1 l 1l1eto1ic to atl)' ideology, a fe\v n1ea11 i 11gft1 l sl1 i ft
i11 url1c1 11 fcJr111 to sl1ow the adv ent <)f tl1e 11ew powe1 are a l l "th<1: t is
necessa 1y - costi 11g l i ttle effort l nd acl1 ieving a 11 C:1 p pa 1ently in1 p1essi ve effect.
Su pposed ly tl1 e te1nporal power of the c l1 t1 rch l1ad been averted
for good, and tl1e construction C)f tl1e enormot1s e1n bel l i s l1ed monu
ment to Vittorio Eman Ltele I I by Giuseppe Sacconi ( 1 8 8 5 r 9 1 l ) was
tl1e only relevant gestL1 re, a ritL1 a l act of sym bol is1n. Its pastic l1e style
cl umsi ly tried to estab l isl1 and demonstrate an obvibus l i n l< to Roman
ideals., but the monument was bruta l l y pl aced at the point where
the o]d Rome toucl1ed the new one, and its position u 11dermined tl1e
inte l l igence of the pl ace: the Piazza del Popolo can be seen from a fa r.,
from the entire Via del Corso, and i t sits on the border between the
roman fora, tl1e medieva l and the baroque city, p l acing itsel f right
beside tl1e Capitolium, where tl1e struggle between secular and ten1pora l power took p lace - swa l l owing past glories and frictions.
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Fol l owing the col l a pse of the

mona1chy, electoral refo rm and the wea kening o f the bot1 rgeoisie,
soci a l democracy became the l eading pol i tical influe11ce in the city
of Vienna. The comp1eJ1e11sive socia l ist outl ook on l i fe regarded the
city as a 11 entity created by and for tl1e proletariat, incl usive o f a l l
i ts tenen1ent blocks, scl1ools, public batl1s, sa11atoria a nd, o f cou rse.,
i ts tra 11 sportat1011 syste1n.
T11e issue o f housing offered the social democratic n1 unicipal
council the opportt1 n i ty to rea l ize their plan of bt1 i l d i ng a fforda ble
housing for the working c lasses at the expense o f the iich. With in
a short pe1iod of time, a large n t1 m ber of gemeindebautez (council
tenen1ent blocks) were b u i l t, financed by counci l property taxes.
The mu l ti-fa m i l y housing complex of the Kar l Marx Hof, designed
by Karl Ehn, is part o f tl1e residentia l bui ld ing programme o f this
'' Red Vienna '' peri od. Its e l ongated constrL1 cti on is a m t1 11icipal icon
and a trademark o f 70 years of social de1nocracy i n the city. The
1 , 3 2 5 flats were arranged a round large cot1 rtyards where communal
fac i l i ties including a bathin g a rea, l a undry fac i l i ties, a doctor's office

47

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Tot a l Capital (Stal i n 's Skyscrapers and B u i l d i ng blo cks - 11The Seven S i sters" and Qua1falys)

48
------

a11d \1<:1 1iot1 s or]1er sl1ops e:1 11d er\1ices \Ve1e lc)c,1 ted. A <lpJ-1osed .
t(l <>tl1e1 te11e111e11t blocks, tl1e pcJor t1se of space \V<:1 s rej ected i 11
favot1 r of '' propc1gande:1 aichitectu re'' . The political i 11st1u111 e11ta l ity
of the new b u i ldi ngs lay in the 5ocial democrats, deci sion toJ a l l ow tl1e
p1eviot1sly established 01der - a bl<)Ck strt1ctu re defi 11ed by the u1ba11
plan - to coexi st with the new 011e, by means of its dimensions,
typology and its speci fic and very recognizable style characterized
l)y elements such as porta l s, courtyards, balcon ies and wi11dows.
The complex is an eloq uent masterpiece - a n1 ighty fortress
where the major faade i s a proud, dark banner of socialist sol idarity.
Its powerful shapes on the exterior combined with those much more
gently articulated i n i ts garden cou rtya1ds, historica l ly c u lm inate
and bring the special Viennese tradition o f Otto Wagner and h i s
school to a social cl imax. The co1nplex acts as a grand-scale gesture,
commt1 nicating a concern towards social issues as a specific politica l
representation.

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Tl1e reading o f the general plan

for the reconstruction o f Moscow o f 1 9 3 5 needs to be s h i fted
beyond the clicl1e that it is purely a means of applied pol itical repre
sentation: above a l l the plan was a practica l a nswer to the d ire needs
o f the city and the bureaucratic regi me. The decidedl y pol itical ein
phasis on the cap i ta l wou ld weaken the other cities and strengthen
Moscow, i n order to hold the power in one location and constrai n
the i nc1easing burea ucracy.
The economic crisis i n the country and the su bsequent i ndustriali
zation had resulted in a massive m igration of unprecedented d i men
sions towards the city, red ucing l iv i ng con dition to a dramatic leve l .
Problematic municipal management u rged an efficient and complete
urban mode l . L.M. Kaganovich - a very close collaborator o f Sta l i n
and mem ber o f the politburo - started engaging actively i n elaborat
ing proposals for t1 rba n planni ng. In 1 9 3 0 11e beca me Genera l
Secretary o f the Commt1 nist Party. From this i nfluential position,
during the sixteenth party congress he struck the decisive persuasive
to11e with which h e convinced the pa rty to adopt a resol ution for
new di rectives and open the way to the law on urban economy in
Moscow. Consequently, a series o f strong governmental institutiona l

49

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A rchip e lago Capital ( b u i lt and u n b u i l t projects by Karl Fried rich Schi nkel in the centre of Ber l i 11, 1816 - 1840)

50

.,.

l1<)(iic \\1e1e est1 l1li 'l1ed . A 1cl1 itectt1 1e bec<:1 111e e:1 t<>c>I t<J e ta bli sl1
l(iecJlogic1 l d i 1ecti\1es; '1 11d tl1 e l.l. st1 l1jectiv it)' "" t>f tl1i""' pc>l1tic1 l itl\'Ol\ e111e11t C(:l n not l1e pt1 rel)' rege:1 1ded i 11 11ega ti,,e te1111 . Accc)1d i11g to
l(<:1 ga11<.) vicl1 - inspired l1)' Ma1x, E11gel and Le11 i 11 - tl1 ree q t1estio11s
had t<) 11 e add 1 es s e cl : fi 1 st, t 11 e oc i <1: l is t t 1 a 11 for 111 c.1 ti o 11 of t 11 e way
of l i vi ng; second, the ir1te1nal pla11 n i ng of the city; a 11d third, tl1e
exp1nsion of existing c1 11d 11ew constructio11, prevenri11g the a bolisl1 111ent of tl1e cont1ast betwee11 city and count1yside. To l(aga.n ovich
cities sl1ot1 l d l1e neither s1na l J et1 tities nor gigantic A1ne1"ican typus.
V. L. Seme11ov became the 11ew principle-a rcl1 i tec;t and laid out
a transformation plan l1ased 011 the decentra.l ization of tl1e existing
system. A col lecti ()n of ' city complexes'' wou l d s t1 rrot111d tl1e centre,
eacl1 with its own econo1nic and adn1 i ni strative autono111y and en
closed wi tl1 recreati onal green spaces. The Qitartalys were a 11 a rche
type provi ded with di fferent i 11 f1astructt1 ral services; each contai ned
abot1t 1 5 11a and was a s111e:1 l l city within tl1e city. Tl1ey were d i st1ib
t1ted i 11 the city to regt1 l ate and define eq t1a l density and d istribution
of se1v ices. Complementary to this were a set of le:1 rge-sca l e public
a 11 d adn1 i nistrative b t1 i l dings as free standing ce11tres, the new n1agzs
tralys (wide roads), ofte11 themed, the reconstructio 11 and n1a inte11ance of tl1e radiocentic strt1cture, a syste111 of city parks a 11d green
corri dors, tl1e design of tl1e rive1, and tl1e creatio11 of a p u b l ic trans
po1tation networl< . Tl1 i s coll ective g7a11deur forged tl1e city and was
idea l l y 111 ea 11 t to help the t()tal itarian state to d ispossess the individual
of l1 is property rigl1ts and co1npensate them by the comm11nal use of
tl1e symbolic arcl1 i tectu re of tl1e city.

A rcl1 i pelago Capita l

As Oberbaurat of the City of

Berl in, I<arl Friedricl1 Scl1 i nkel envisioned tl1e capital of Prussia as
a 11 a 1ch i pelago and defi11ed a series of b u i l d i ng-islands which, by
their p 1oxi1nity to each other, built an i dea of the centre that is not
meant to be a tota l entity. Schinkel's concept of the a rchipelago stems
fro111 the dialectic i n terest esta bl ished between discreteness and unity.
We bel ieve that th is dialectic ca11 form tl1e city without receding i n to
the flattening real rn of a town plan, or conve rsely, a sprawl of scat
tered episodes. The archipe lago approach to a city acl<nowledges
separation as a n active con frontation of pa rts and not as passive
fragn1entation.
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Cities within the City ( B e r l i n as green A rchip elago, O. M . U ngers1 R. Koo l haas et. a l . , 1 977)

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.. cl1 i 11],el' 1 rch i 1Jel ,1gt) 11ali a 1e111 :i 1 kal1le i 11 fl t1e11l:e 011 tl1e prc>j ect fcl1
l3erl i 11 iii Cities Witl1i11 the Cit)' l)y Oswt:1 l d Matl1 i c.1 s U11ge1s, Re111
I". <)01 11<:1 '1, H a 11 s I C)l l1off, and otl1e1s. Co 111 1oseci 1n r 9 7 7 , tl1is i rl1e
le:1 st 111a11ife to C ) tl tl1e Et1 1<)pea 11 city. S 1 11ce tl1en Il <) otl1er p101ect with
sL1cl1 physica l , for111a 1 , politica l , t:1 11d ideol ogic<.1 1 i11 tensit)' has bee11
formt1 l ated . Stressing the condition of Berlin at tl1at ti 1ne, a fragn1ented a 11d t1 nder-popu lated city, they reinvented the idea of Berlin as a n
archipel ago of city-commt1 nities i 1n mersed in a sea of green space.
Here too, another project by Schi11 kel - tl1e Sch loR K lein Gl ienicke provided i 11spiration to Ungers and tl1e otl1ers. The parl< design by
Sch i nkel and Le11ne was seen by the a rcl1 i tects as aitmodel where land
scape and arch i tectu re wot1 l d merge as a powerful representation a r1d
a n intell igent man ner to counter tl1e '' decline'' of Berli n .

5 .7

Tl1 e Twenty-First-Centt1ry Capital

A long with its hesitant se1n bl ance

as capita] by defa t1 lt, it is not su rpri sing that the presence and devel
opment of Eu 1opean institutions in the city of Brussels is both tied
to and rep resentative o f the evo l ution of Europe as a pol itical project.
The EEC ( Eu ropean Economic Com m u 11 i ty ) settled i n the Leopold
Quartet, which a t fi rst was no n101e than the pre l i mina1y accommo
dation of the necessary European i nstitutio11s, and only later became
the only sem i-offici a l seat of the E L1 ropean Commun ity. I t was11't
t1 ntil 2000, with the T1eaty of N ice, that the Eu ropean Counci l con
fi rmed Brussels' de facto role as Capital of Europe.
Today, the EU ( Eu ropean Unio11) has evolved beyond the ea1]y
conceptua l phases o f this delicate and complex pol itical project
tl1at chose Brussels as its provisio11 a l executive seat. However, the
European institutions sti l l play an a mbiguous iole as ''guests '' i n the
ci ty. The i 1 institutions a re housed in rented office spaces and thereby
d i rectly trigger Brussels' real estate dyna mics, instead of consciot1 s l y
and open ly con tri buting to the city's u rban planning and develop
ment. Over the l ast decades, this process l1as rest1 l ted in a decay of
the city fa bric and an erosion of Lt rban q L1 a l ities in l a rge portio11 s of
the city. The impact tl1at previous pol i tical powers had on the urban
structure of Brt1ssels has clearly evaporated ( o r proved ineffective )
du ring this period, and the 1n t1 ltifaceted character of the city has
tu rned into mere fragn1entation .

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Br ussels as Theat1-o de/ Belgio ( P l a n of Brusselsi G a l eazzo G u a l do Prio rato, 1 673)

54

Brt1ssels i tsel f 1ep1ese11ts a ste:1 re111e11t C>11 t11e ft1 tt1 1e c>f tl1e E U : i ts.
f1,1 g111e11ta tio11 11a <.> pe1l1<:1 ps l1ecl)111e tl1e tLI 111 i 11g p<)i i1 t \\. 11ere l1r the
e11gage111ent C)f tl1e Et1 roi1ea11 l 11stitL1 tio11s i 11 it p<1tit:1 l 01g1nization
i':> '-1 111ea11s to e11act rl1e p1oj ect of Et1 ropee:1 11 ge< >p<>l iticc.1 1 i ntegrati o 11
i ntc> t11e space of tl1 e ci t)' i tsel f., to a ppoi11t tl1e ci t)' <.l s ve1ita b le ca pital
c)f E Ll t ope.
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The name '' Broekzele'' first

appeared i 11 9 7 7 and 1eferred to the settlement C)tl tl1e island of the
Senne River, running through a swan1py '' broek '' o r fl uvial val ley.
On the l1igher poi11ts east of this main va l l ey, the '' CoL1 denberg'' , tl1e
first se:1 cred and i nstitt1 tional buildings were erected at the crossing o f
secondary roa ds. The h u 111 l1le 1nedieval incipit of the city i 1nmediately
thrived, benefiting from a crtici l)le positio11 an1011g different rea l ities:
11c)rth and sot1th Europe - 1nainly great Britain, Gerrnany and Fra nce
n1et in tl1 is place formed by a l ittle po1t a 11d the con necting roads
passing th rot1gh . One o f these was the Divertict1 l um, a former ag1i
ct1 ltural road, pa1a l lel with the Senne River tl1at ran l1 a l fway ti p the
slope - on the c t1 rrent l ocation of the '' Roya l Road '' . On the eastern
side of t11 is h i l lock lay the va l l ey of t he Maelbeek - 11ow the Leopold
Qt1 arter. From tl1e Middle Ages to the fi1st I<ingsh i ps, the relation
l1etween the upper city and lower city remc.1 ined a firm exp ressi on
of power between the political institutions 011 the '' Couden berg''
c1 nd the val ley tl1at was the site of trade and the ma rket ( a 1ound the
ce11tra1 sq L1are ) .
As soon as Brussels beca me the capital o f Belgi t1m i n r 8 3 o, the
wal led med ieva l city was opened and the fi rst develop ments outside
tl1e pentagon occt1rred . Since the institu tional power was sti l l located
within the pentagon on the '' Coudenberg '' , the new system o f
bou levards rea ffi rmed the statt1s of the cent1e wl1ile abandon i ng
the wa l l ed c ity mode l .

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G reen city ( P l a11 for the Region of B russels, Victor Besn1e, 1 866)

56

6.2

Leopold 1 1 's L1 1b1n pc)l icies for111ed

a cc)mprom ise betwee11 his vi sions for a 1node1n Brt1 ssels a 11d tl1e i11te1ests of private develope1-s. The old pentagon, considered provi11cial
and i 11adequate, needed to be '' sanit ized and bea utified '' and the city
was to be expanded by reinforci11g existing historical a xes and trac
ing new arteries. Alo11g these axes, new p tt b l ic and representative
buildings, pa1ks a 11d ope11 spaces l a i d ot1 t the structure of the city's
expansion. Several n1ayors often cooperated or wely opposed
Leopold 1 1 's decision making., but his clear structure nevertheless
positively a ffected the growth of the enti re c ity, forging an indel ible
structu1e for Brussels. The main qual ity of IGng Leopol d 's urban plan
is the close relation to the c ity's morphological assets; tl1e plan i nte
grates these assets into a balanced structure of the city that medi a tes
i ts easte1n and western parts.
One of the main extensions of the city was the Leopol d Qua rter,
developed i n a regt1 lar grid structure between the Royal Park and
the Pare C i 11quante11ai re a long the axis of the Rue de l a Loi. This
boulevard runs perpendicular to the Royal Road that was extended
to the newly erected Palace of Justice.
In order to establ ish a conti11 u ous rai lway system with a real
cen tral station for Brussels, Leopold 1 1 conceived the North-South
Ju nction, passing through the pentagon and req u i ring i mpressive
demol itic)ns. A series of national monuments and institutions was
erected 011 top of the u 11 derground ra i lway 1 ine: the national bank,
the national administrative centre, the national l i brary, the central
station, and the national ai rport head offices. With the advent of in
dustria l ization, the division between the upper and l ower city grew
even stronger; the val ley along the canal developed into an i ndustrial
cor1idor while the h igher p lane was colonized by the bourgeois.
Around 1 900, the Senne R ive1 was vaulted to protect the city
from floods and epidemics. Even today, the area along the canal
remains tl1 e poorest of the city and the N o 1tl1 -South j uncti o11 is sti l l
one o f tl1e major ruptures in the u rban fabric. From that period 011wards, the topogra p hical div ide was no longer explo ited to represent
a power relation ( i n other words, a ce1ta in connection ) , but beca1ne a
strong bl ueprint for the social d ivide witl1 in the city. In the meantime,
the peripl1ery l)ecame more and more u rbanized by tl1 e bot1 rgeois and
a second ring road was constructed at the beginning o f the twentieth

57

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Tabula rasa (the Man hattan Project and its construct ion, 1 971 )
60

ce11 tt1 r)., bt1t \ t:1 11ever e11tirely co111pleted .

As a iesp()nse tc) the explosi ve g1owtl1 <Jf tl1e tertia 1..y secto1
foll owi11g tl1e Second Wo 1ld Wa r ai1d its st1 bseqt1ent L1 rl1an izat1011
tl1e city's r<)ad 11etwork was rnodernized with the constrt1cr;ion of
the highway i4ing a 1ot1 nd Brussel s. Three rings now define the city's
accessi bj l 1ty and intell igibility. However, tl1e cjty l1as yet to develop a
c lea r and coherent urban structure for this extended scale of the city.

Today (Tra uma )

Within the absence of an overall

urban structure, large and long-lastin.g u rban and infrastructu1a]
works such as the Manhattan Project radically erased the traces of
previ ous settle1nents. The result has been a domi nating perception
of the city's urb.an h istory li1 terms of loss; a loss of a qualitative ( me
dieva l ) urban structure, demolished and cut apart by infrastructures
and huge '' modernization '' proj ects resu lti ng in a frag111ented urban
pattern . Although very well founded, over time this perception has
become a tyranny that has blinded citizens, urban planners and
policy ma kers from the necessity to address the sca le of the city,
its topographical and social divide between upper (east) and lower
( west) city, and the relation to its historical centre as essential precon
ditions for a qualitative development.
The presence of Europe in Brussels is distinguished by differen
time frames of landscape tra nsformation in the Leopold Quarter that
are related to the fortunes of the EC: the launching of the Community
( I 9 5 7 - 1 9 6 6 ) ; the consolidation of office functions ( I 9 6 7 - 1 9 8 5 ) ;
a nd tl1e relaunching of Europe ( 1 9 8 6 ) .
In the period of the launching of the community, when European
integration did not captivate the imagination of politicians, elector
ates and markets as it does today, the institutions entered the city
throt1gh a ''Troj a n Horse '' . The expansion of office space - based on
gradual and uncontrol led private development - has removed a large
part of nineteenth-century and early twentieth-centt1ry urban fabric
of the old Leopold Quarter and now infringes upon other n ineteenth
century neighbourhoods i n the northern and southern parts of the
city. After the signing of the Single European Act i n 1 9 8 6, develop
ment propelled the Quarter i nto the pol itical limel ight and turned
several office bui ldings into fortresses, fostering the real estate

61

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EU i nvasion (the Leopold Quarter in 1950 ( l eft) and 1 967 (rig ht))

62

'

ma rket. Here, the scale of proj ects changed significantly: building

compounds converted portions of the city into mega-projects for
the accomrnodation of th European institutions.
The provisional status of Brussels as the seat of the exeQutive EC
had a negative impact on the attitude of the key arbiters of planning:
the Belgian and Brussels authorities. As the EU settled in Brussels,
the CED - Central Executive District - was adopted as a model to
anticipate the growth of the European office market. The CED lool<s
similar to most world-class executive centres that are beneficiaries
of the growing trend of globalization of command, control, and communication functions associated with administrative and corporate
activity. Here, tl1e built environment acted simply as a passive matrix,
or canvas, for urban transformations initiated by political and eco
nomic forces, failing to direct its own form of politica l, economic,
and aesthetic choices.

CJ)
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....

Legacies

Intersected by the canal and rail

way infrastructures, the city is difficult to read and nearly impossible
to traverse. At the same time, Brussels is the city of the rich a11d the
poor. The centre is scarcely inhabited - mainly by either students or
creative types. Undeniably, Brussels is a city of foreigners: more than
a quarter of its inhabitants are from different origins, creating ghettos
as well as lively and diverse quarters.
The Brussels Capital Region is one of the richest of Europe, bene
fiting from economies of scale and proximity to other prosperous ur
ban regions. Yet despite being an economic powerhouse that pro
'
vides approximately 7 00, ooo jobs for its r , 000,000 inha bitants and
is responsible for about r 7 per cent of the total Belgian employment
and 1 5 per cent of the GNP, there are also nearly 9 0,000 unemployed
residents. On top of this - and closely related - about 40 per cent of
all families in Brussels live in deprived neighbourhoods and an esti
mated r 6 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line. In
terms of housi ng, there is also an imbalance caused by a significant
lack of social housing (only 8 per cent ) and by a market that is
pushing the poorest residents towards the canal zone. Moreover,
the bewildering complexity of political boundaries, linguistic regions
and communities diverts attentions and energies .

63

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64

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Political Metropolis

Belgi um is a federal state om

posed of three communities, three regions, and four linguistic re. gions. Two out of the three regions each comprise provinces made
up of inunicipalities. These are the most important subdivisions of
Belgium, and some of them have geographical boundaries: the re
gions, the linguistic regions, the provinces and the municipalities .
On the other hand, the division by communities is neither territorial
nor demographic. The communities do not di.rectly rfer to groups of
people but rather to a division of the political linguistic and cultural
competencies of the country. Although these communities have no
excl usive territory, they do have a precise and legally established area
where they can exert their competencies: the Flemish Community is
responsible in the Flemish and Brussels regions; the French-speaking
Community i n the Walloon and Brussels regions; and the German
Community only in a small part of the province of Liege ( Wallonia),
bordering Germany. The three regions are the Brussels-Capital
Region, the F lemish Region and the Walloon Region.
Morphologically, Belgium - and especially Flanders - is charac
terized by a sprawl of development. A reason for this is the regions'
strategic location in Europe, in the delta of the Scheide River, but also
the dense medieval road network, the aspiration of the people for a
single family house and, last but not least, the promotion of private
ownership by the government and the Church over the past two
centuries, against a social conception of the territory. This urbanized
region is turning into a vast conglomerate of all kinds of traditional
entities including cities and villages, neo-urban entities such as pe
ripheral landscapes, urban fragments, urban grids, strips, and linear
cities with neo-rural fields in between.

6.6

Capital Complex

Since 1 9 89 , the Brussels Capital

Region has been one of the three regions of Belgium. The public insti
tutions in Brussels are organized in a complex structure composed of
1 9 municipal authorities and six intermunicipal zones. Seven of these
municipalities have only one official name, while the other 1 2 have

65

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66

both a Dutch and a French name. The list of I 9 municipalities is :

sometimes referred to as the agglomeration of Brussels, although the
actual urban agglomeration around Brussels, as far as demography is
concerned, extends much further than these 1 9 municipalities .

'

Capita l of Europe

Brussels - capital by default has an unexploited potential as capital of Europe. e challenge is

set: the social, political and spatial fragmentation of the city equals
the challenge that confronts Europe in its unification process .

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Agonism

According to Carl Schmitt, the

concept of the political lies in the friend/enemy relationship. In other
words, the political is always the space between confronting subj ects
within adverse stands and agonisms. While in the past this definition
held the very possibility of antagonist conflict as viable precondition,
today antagonist conflict must be ''civilized '' as agonistic political
conflict.
Instead of antagonism - the conflict between enemies who do not
share any common symbolic space, such as nation-states, or good
and evil - we are concerned about agonism - conflict between adver
saries who recognize a common ground. This common ground is
the city intended as the locus of a friendly enmity. Our position for
a renewed representation of public space within the city in the form
of the European institutions is not a self-referential utopia, b ut a re
action to the existing liberal forces that today pattern the city as an
agglomeration of individualities. Instead of accepting this pattern as

67

the u ltimate meaning of urbanity, we chal lenge it by acknowledging

and envisioning a different metropolitan consciousness based on an
archipelago of public artefacts that function as institutional poles,
access to public transport, and social housing units. This archipelago
constructs an intelligible urban composition in agonistic relationship
with the fragmented and complex social and political landscape of
the existing city. The appearance of the archipelago is only conceiv
able by its inevitable association with the landscape it articulates and
confronts. This implies that we conceive the project of the European
capital not as an alternative to the landscape of the existing city, but
as different and complementary to it. Instead of imaging tl1e city as
the by-product of market automatism or conversely as the utopia of
an antagonistic world, we propose a vision that takes into account
the productive paradox of confrontation, where opposition always
implies the recognition and the acknowledgment of the adversary.

Against Smoothness

In the age of economy's supremacy

over the political, confrontation is downgraded to consensus, and
society is represented within all.:embracing concepts such as globaliza
tion and network. Within such context the chances for conflict and
agreement between human institutions are annihilated by the smooth
ness of market flows. Market flow and its consequential ''rhetoric''
of globalization and network are not simply self-organizing matters of
fact, they are also symbolic apparatuses of '' representation '' nurtured
by the belief in the market economy as the ultimate means of pacific
coexistence. Nowadays, praised architecture and urbanism express
this symbolic appearance of smoothness and complexity as the aesthetic qual ities of a desirable urban space. Smoothness symbolizes the
ubiquitous all-inclusive power of the market to render urban space ac
cessible and comfortable for consumption; while complexity and lack
of urban order - once revolutionary representation against top-down
impositions - are today the perfect cultural alibi for the laissez-faire
politics of the city. But, already by itself, the existential experience of
urban space brutally displays how market smoothness shapes itself
within our cities in clustered urban complexes, radically disconnected
from the city and highly connected to global infrastructures. This phe
nomenon complements the current political and social exclusion .

68

, ,_.

Assuredly, political exclusion is the supremacy of what has been . '

called by urban geographers the '' Premium Space '' . It is defined
by economic powers within the city and eventually dooms the
Civitas confining it to improvised and marginal locations of urbanity.
In this sense the rhetorics of participation, bottom-up, and multitude
_ by simply being ''antagonistic'' forces - limit the practice of counter-positioning to the city's left-over spaces. We reverse this situation
by proposing the seats of European Institutions not as bureaucratic
enclaves, but as accessible podiums f.or collective rituals and political
action.

1 .

7. 3
Against the Creative Class

Today the economy is influenced

by the ability to produce ideas, knowledge and social innovation.
More than in the past these factors are not simply necessary but
quintessential to economic development in an advanced context
like Europe.
This is why the creative class has been appointed as the emerging
social model of late capitalism. The concept of the creative class sees
the role of ideas, knowledge and social innovation only as a tool
of production for production's sake. What was once the essence
of man's vita activa - the very possibility of a public sphere made
of political action supported by, but protected from, the necessity
of labour and work - is now intended as the ultimate instrument of
economic growth. Cities become exclusive enclaves for privileged
professionals whose creative skills are seen only at the service of
market competition. We believe the creative class's exclusive concern
with production is a symptomatic outcome of its conservative politi
cal views on the city.
The city of the creative class is a glossy gated community on the
scale of the city that bypasses any other mode of cityness than the
one destined to increase economic growth.
We think of a European citizenship opposite to the a-political
lifestyle of the so-called creative class. This new style of European
citizenship is the possibility to conceive the city as the space in which
human cooperation does not simply refuse, but exceeds the purpose
of production and economic growth, and materializes as political
1mag1nat1on.

69

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Jean Monnet (Right), 1 95 1

70

7 .4
Communitarian Class

Against the hegemony of the crea

tive class, the inhabitants of the capital city will pursue a new urban
and communitarian life style, based on cosmopolitanism, solidarity
and the sharing of l iving space. The main ideological horizon of
the cosmopolitan class will not be the incentive of competition and
sociality i n advantage of economic deve lopment, but the intermina
ble practice of translation - the process of exchanging and displacing
conceptions about the world by different communities of people. In
the activity of translation, which is what a cosmopolitan community
constantly practices i n order to coexist, irreconcilable differences
are neither denied nor exaggerated, but subjected to the political and
historical question: who are we, and how do we relate to each other ?
Instead of being regarded as an economic condenser hub where
public space exists as nostalgia for the city, the city itself is a tangible
condenser of political life and all that this entails.
The constitution of this condenser is the process of political and
cultural translation between different communities and socia l groups
that coexists without blending into a homogeneous melting pot, or
conversely collapsing in a '' clash of civilization'' .

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Constitutionalism versus Gradualism

After the Second World War there

were two possible paths leading towards a united Europe: either
by starting with a European government of a federal nature, or by
moving towards this federal goal through a step-by-step convergence
of the national policies of the different countries. The first path,
a constitutional approach - the one promoted by Altiero Spinelli
- put the federation first, conceiving it as the goal of a constitutional
struggle. The second path, a gradual approach - followed by Jean
Monnet - placed federal power at the end of a gradual process, which
could be conducted by an inter-governmental mechanism mobilizing
the national forces interested in European solutions.
The European governments adopted Monnet's gradual approach.
Th e ECSC ( European Community for Steel and Coal) is the first repre.:
sentation of this successful model; a model that subsequently inspired
.

71

other variants, such as the European Economic Community ( EEC ) in

r 9 5 7 - r 9 5 8 , and the European Atomic Energy Community ( EAEC) in
r 9 5 7 . The advantage of the adopted strategy was that it could involve
the active forces of the nations without asking for a constitutional re
form. However, the disadvantage of the strategy was that it could not
be carried out in a democratic manner because it enta i led European
decisions, which were no longer controlled by national parliaments
and not yet controlled by the European Parliament ( founded in 1 9 79 ) .
It was only in I 9 8 6 when, through the Single European Act,
the advisory role of the European Parliament was strengthened with
limited legislative power and its members subsequently became
directly elected.
The disadvantage of Spinelli's more democratic strategy was the
difficulty of setting up a constituent assembly at the beginning of the
process, with the parties sti ll closely tied to the national powers. The
first example of this was the rejection of the EDC ( European Defence
Community) by France in r 9 5 5 , followed by the quiet shelving of the
EPC (European Political Community ) . The failure of the EDC demon
strated the dilemma of trying to form a federal government on the
basis of a ''functiona l '' principle. Moreover, the recent difficulties
in agreeing on a European Constitution offer proof that, although
almost 5 0 years later, it has not become any easier to achieve such
ambitious goals.
The long, hard struggle to render the European Community
democratic does, however, show the complementary natt1re of the
gradualist and constituent methods. As long as the framework of
international politics remains favourable to the European unification
process, each institutional or economic reform that favours unity
reinforces the position of the pro-European forces and enables more
advanced forms of struggle. But only through a democratic constitu
tion that clearly defines the powers, responsibilities and rights of
citizens will European institutions cease to be considered by public
opinion as the '' bureaucratic Europe of governments '' , and finally
become the ''democratic Europe of citizens'' .

72

7.6

City Consciousness

'

.,

We concider European istitutions

to be the podia that symbolically represent the idea of the city as the
locus of translation. These institutions are rendered i n the form of urban artefacts that concretely and clearly articulate the responsibility
of power towards the city, the right of accessibility as the right to citizenship, and the communality 0 space as the ultimate representation
of cityness.
In our project this position is expressed trough'the use of simpli
fied and extreme typologies of pu blic space and by means of an
abstract and anonymous language that transcends authorship and
celebrates equality.
Brussels as the Capital City of Europe is an archipelago of in
habitable monuments to the city, placed right back into its heart in
order to affirm city consciousness against the generic pattern of
urbanization.

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8.I
Form

Form essentially involves a posi

tive act of spatial determination, of ( de)li mitation. Its fundament
relies on how far form is defined in terms of limits rather than
self-sufficiency. Precisely in its finitude and specificity it implies the
positive existence of something outside itself: by being concerned
with '' itself'' , it necessarily concerns the ''other'' . The concept of
form is against total ity and is also against the generic conception
of multiplicity.
Form is thus a veritable rendition of the political, since the
political is the agonistic space of rea l plurality, of others. As such,
the formal is a partisan idea.
73

It is for this reason that we see architectural form as the medium with
which to address the city that will represent Europe.
The struggle for Europe is the struggle to define its form - its
ideological and cultural boundary - in order to make the interaction
between Europe as '' itself'' and the ''other'' even tually possible and
intelligible. Accordingly, the struggle for the city is a struggle about
the definition of its form - its ideological, cultural, and physical
boundaries - to make the interaction between its institution and the
fabric possible and as intelligible as the very image of the city itself.

8.2
Inside-Outside

Aligned to Carl Schmitt's defini

tion of the political in terms of the contrast friend/enemy, we may re
define form as a struggle between an inside and an outside, a relationunique,
singular
essence.
As
such,
rather
than
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ship
.
it is a favourable paradox: both an aspiration io unity and a positive
recognition of limits. Form is therefore never self-referential but
always an active agent that is regarded in relationship to something
else, an entity defined by and in antagonism to its context.
While this definition is deliberately problematic in relation to
the contemporary world in which the flooding and formless logic of
the market has seemingly dissolved the possibilities of any '' outside'' ,
it is a useful definition today for this very reason: as a means not
j ust to renew the meaning and efficacy of architecture, but also and
especially as a critical device to hold the city.
Formalism to us is a cogent urban strategy, a confrontation with
the city undertaken through the oblique trajectory of form rather
than the straightforward, but by now thoroughly compromised
channels of '' information'' and ''content'' .

8.3
Architectural Form
Architectural Form is a construc
tive and theoretical apparatus whose '' public-ness '' , in most cases,
is less exclusive than that of art. Simply by being, architectural form
is manifesting a definition of public space, by delimiting it and thus

74

by defining a mode of coexistence. By public space we don't mean a

legal definition (public versus private) but a shared space which, giv
en its collectiveness, defines a form of coexistence a mong idividuals.
For this reason, for architecture there is no other option th an to
express itself through a language that is radically and coasciously
appropriate, that is clear in it goals and its cause, able to represent
and institutionalize living as a value which is, by definition, at once
universal and singular. Architecture cannot have any goal apart from
that of relentless enquiry over its singularity, by which it constitutes
the city. Architecture must address the city even when the city has
no goal for architecture. For this reason, the city is ltimately the
only object of architectural investigation and method: conjecture
about the form of the city is the only way to answer the question,
''why architecture ? ''
We answer this question in the form of a project for Brussels as
the Capital of Europe. We consider this project to be the opportunity
to construct a grammar in which architectural form is the program
matic fulcrum of the city's invention.

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Simple Forms

We are tired of the compulsory

extravaganza to which architects are condemned in order to make
visible their contribution to the city. We aim to design architectural
artefacts as simp le forms.
Simple to the point of unpretentiousness, the proposed artefacts
for Brussels as Capital of Europe are little more than a receptacle for
public space, they almost vanish into an artificial field of metropoli
tan experiences. They are organized as landscape, yet completely
controlled, artificial and cold: ready to receive warmth from the
citizens rather than any design fantasy. The buildings do not try to
imitate natural formations; they are rather precise in denying any
picturesque temptations.
They are the product of reasonable - though highly critica l and
still questionable - decisions. The architecture shows its responsibil
ity towards the institutions and housing it hosts by exposing the arti
ficial, abstract, political nature of the arguments that define the spe
cific form. Architecture needs to be understandable in order for it to
be the subj ect of discussion and therefore either refused or accepted.

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It is architectt1re's duty to be open-minded and accessible for peop'le

to confront.
Sobriety confers solemnity on bui ldings. It turns them .into monuments in which there is no spectacle to be seen except for the behaviours and the responses of the observers themselves. Monuments
with nothing to express ( if not the continuity of appe.arance they
perform in order to symbolize the Capital City), but nevertheless ex
plicit monuments: a rational attempt to imagine and expose a project
of civilization, to define a common ground for its different vis itors .
In this sense, the buildings are monuments for the multitude: they
provide and j uxtapose spaces for highly formalized political events
and spaces for everyday activities; offer a complex spatial sequence
acting as machines with which to record emptiness and congestion;
to define a multiple, yet common landscape.
Sober buildings, as architecture, show an understanding of multi
plicity that does not immediately coincide with a useless collection
of quarrelsome minorities. On the contra ry, the architecture involves
the definition of a common field for the exchange of experiences;
it suggests and imagines the possibility for the multitude to share a
common political consciousness.
The artefacts are platforms for disparate events; a collection of
possible experiences placed in relation to one another in the simplest
way that still relates to the city as it needs to be. Hence every distinct
bt1ilding is recognizable as part of a whole - also according to the
similarities of language - and the composition j ust distributes them
across the city centre and offers the richest supply of spaces and
urban possibilities.

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C o n st it u t i o n of the P.roj et
9.1
C om po s i t i o n
9 . 2 Central ity
9 . 3 S y m m etry
9.4
The M i r ror C ity
9.5
D e m o I it i o n

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The I n st i t u t i o n a l Promenade
9.7
C u l t u re and E d ucat i o n
9.8 H o u s i ng
9 .9 Access i b i I ity
9 . 1 0 The M etro C i rc u i t
9 . 1 1 Utopia

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The Carrefo ur de l ' E u rope
The E u ropean U n i versity Centre
M u nd a n e u m
The J osaphat Q u a rter
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N a m i ng and l i n k i ng. Th e cit y as con ste l l at i o n

80

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Composition

In order to shift from the dema

gogy of a pragmatic vision to the utopian concretertess of architectural action, we i ntervene upon the physical structure of Brussels,
tackling a collection of urban sites through a process of selection
and exclusion. Exclusion does not preclude further thinking or
future opportunities for development of the excluded parts, nor
does it cast away these excluded sites as '' left-over '' parts of the city.
On the contrary this approach leaves space for future circumstances
and necessities, while the project at the same time avoids being
h indered by the endeavour of an overly comprehensive planning
that necessarily remains on the surface of an extremely complex
reality. Our limited set of interventions aims to initiate the emergence
of a precise composition of central ities.
As Europe is an urban civilization and Brussels will embody
its political landscape - not for civic tourism, but as a sincere com
m itment to the set challenge, the plan aims to connect city parts.
The project defines a part/counterpart composition i n which each
part recognizes and collaborates with the others.
If the essence of the Federa list political project is the agonism be
tween parts, we see the part/counterpart tension, necessarily implied
in the act of composition, as the most appropriate em blematic ges
ture, which will enable Brussels to represent the European political
idea through the city. Hence, Brussels' diverse urban morphology will
be engaged and reorganized accordi ng to a collective principle, which
will turn the city's fragments into parts of a unitary composition .

81

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Center (Pentagon) and Region. A difficu lt relatio nship : i n need of a n interm edi ate syste m of centra l ities
82

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Topography
D i v ide (canal)
Tota l access i b i l ity
Vacant city
Leopold 1 1 structure

83

C hoosing
A selection of the problematic sites of
the city as potent ial new central it ies.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Leopo ld Quarter
Turn &Taxis A rea
Beco Basin and Porte de Ni nove
Carrefour de ! ' Europe
Delta Station
West Station
Josaphat Station
Bockstael Rai I way Trench
Schaerbeek Formation Station

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._ ,

Mergi ng
New centralities and the "old"
i ncomplete axes of Leopol d
l l 's Brussel s

Composing
A new ritual promenade for the
city: proposal for a metro circuit
that l i nks the selected sites
and reorga nizes the existing
accessi bi I ity to the city

From negative to positive, transforming the vacant city i nto an arch ipelago

84

-----I

The Eu ropean Quarter

The Eu ropean Parliament
The Canal Quarter
Carrefour de l ' E urope
The E u ropean U niversity Centre
Mu ndaneum
Josaphat Quarter
Bockstael Housing Po le
The Gate

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

A rchipelago: the n i n e new centra l ities and the 19 municipa l ities of Brussels
.

85

Centra lity

To think of the city as a centrality

does not necessarily mean to reduce it to a single point; to us central
ity i s the product of a system of centres distributed throughout the
city i n order to define a ''metropolitan field'' able to exert. gravita
tional attraction reaching beyond the existing city core: the pentagon.
The pentagon is still the unique centrum, but it is now besieged by a
redundant concentric expansion neither capable of supporting it nor
allowing it to be set free from congestion. Our intervention operates
on the scale in-between the pentagon and the region to create a way
for Brussels to amplify its urban possibilities and to offer its region
- and more widely Europe - the setting to attract new i nvestments
and urban events. Increasing the scale of the city does not involve
a change in its physical dimensions i n yet another l and-consuming
development, but rather the expansion of its aura to the metropolitan
scale and the definition of its new l imits. With the edges of the
composition, we define the new scale of the city and reconstitute
the h istoric centre as the hinge between its southern and northern,
but especially its eastern and western expansion .

9.3

Symmetry

Though based upon intrinsic

features of urban design - programme, accessibility, representation
and form - the main endeavour of the composition of parts is to tran
scend this formal level through complementarities, affinities, and
differentiations among the distinct centralities. (Nata b ene: differ
ence enhances confrontation and relationship. ) In each part we im
bue the spatial composition with a specific fundamental theme that
not only relates to the direct surroundings, but also to the other cen
tralities. The project thus establishes cross-bindings and reciprocal
relationships among the different parts of the composition, and
installs the elements of a n ideal symmetry into a diverse urban mor
phology. The tension between this ideal symmetry and the city's
uncanny complexity represents the struggle between the ideal of
the European Project and the divergent and sometimes fragmented
reality of Brussels.

86

9 .4
The Mirror City

The new urban geography that

represents both Europe - the institutions that politically and cultur
ally represent it - and ''the Idea of Europe'' in the city of Brussels,
consists of a series of '' symmetrical'' installations of constitutive ele
ments: institutions, culture and education, housing and accessibility.
In Brussels, the ideal symmetry is a way to engage with the specific
urban phenomenology of the city. Brussels is divided a long a northsouth line: the east represents the ''good '' hal f - the.higher income
and '' cosmopolitan'' part of the city, where all the European
Institutions and related programmes are located at the moment,
while the west is the '' bad '' half - the low income and '' multiethnic''
part of the city. This east-west division is also morphologically in
stalled in the city plan. The incompleteness of the composition of
axes and parks of Victor Besmes, largely implemented with the sup
port of King Leopold II and the Brussels' Mayor, mainly restructures
the eastern part of the city, while except for the axis towards the
Koekelberg Cathedral, the Royal Palace in Laken, and the Heyzel
Expo Park in the north, the west has not been affected by his grand
regional plan.
Besmes' composition intended to define a new form of the city
by laying out an archipelago of parks in the city plan and hence
increasing the land value in specific zones of the city. For this matter,
we consider the instrument that this project applies, and what it
represents, as antithetical to the ideological a mbitions of '' Brussels
as Capital of Europe'' . We nevertheless endorse and support the po
tential city dimension that it traces for Brussels, especially because it
escapes both the straitj acket of the pentagon (the city-core) , and the
questionable political diameter framed by the regional city border.
These are the exact reasons why we act with a strategy that is criti
cally complementary to the Besmes plan, and extend the envisioned
new city dimension to the west. Not a system of parks, but an archi
pelago of intense metropolitan centralities in the form of urban arte
facts will define the new dimension and a new balance of the city. In
this way, the entire composition evolves trough a series of formal and
programmatic symmetries of city parts that are different or comple
mentary. This archipelago of centralities will turn the north-south
line ( and the east-west line) from a line of division into a potentially
ideal mirror that critically transforms the division between the two

87

..
-

Sym metries and points of reference.

For a mental map of Brussels.
The process of programme organization
starts with the demol it ion of the existing
pa r l i ament and its relocation to the east
part of the city (Turn &Ta xis).The selec
tion, composition, and thematization of the
new centra lities fol low the same logic of
reciprocal m i rroring along the east-west
''line of symmetry" of the city.
T h i s operation has no physical pretension.
It wants to reinforce a mental form of the
city based on the composition of the new
different central i t ies.

'

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1 /2
3/4
5/6
7/8
9/ 1 0

Commis sion & Council - Parl iament

Canel Q uarter - Carrefour de I' E u rope
U n i versity Centre - M undaneum
Housing pole (Josapha t) - Housing pole ( Bockstael)
The Gate - Gare Midi

"

88

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2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

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The European Qu 'a rter

The European Par l i ament
The Canal Quarter
Carrefour de l ' E urope
The European U n iversity Centre
M u n"daneum
Josaphat Quarter
Bockstael Housing Pole
The Gate
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Gate HST Station

Housing

Housing

LILLE I LONDON

WEST

Commission

Parliament

EAST

KOLN

U n i versity

Mundaneum

South Station

Forest

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Mirror City
89

sides of the city into a constructive confrontation. The relocation of

the European Parliament from its current location in the Leopold
Quarter (east) to the Turn & Taxis area in the west is the first symbol
ical operation towards the Mirror City. Further to this principle,
each programmatic theme can be seen as the mirrored projection
of its counterpart according to the logic of the north-south political
line: European Council and Commission (east) versus European
Parliament (west) , European University Centre (east) versus
Mundaneum (west) , the Bockstael housing pole ( west) versus the
Josaphat Quarter (east), Canal Quarter (west) versus Carrefour
de l'Europe (east) .

9.5
Demolition

The demolition of the existing

Parliament of the EU and the building of the new Parliament is the
symbolical first act of this Proj ect. The demolition of the existing
complex will be an event in itself. As the exception that confirms
the rule, we declare the existing Parliament the only large structure
that requires demolition. In this one case, the Project proposes to
endorse and repeat the operation so familiar to the city and the
cause for its citizen's traumatic relation to architects. It is a crucial
act - a declaration of commitment to the European Project as the
last and necessary '' shock therapy'' that will determine the end of
the trauma.

9.6

The Institutional Promenade

The sprawl of office buildings is

gradually forming a cntinuous section through the core of Brussels,
ranging from the European Quarter, over the eastern edge of the pen
tagon and the entire trajectory of the Central J unction, to the North
Quarter ( Manhattan Project) . This concentration of institutional
and private office spaces threatens to further turn the very centre
of Brussels into an office ghetto, similar to the one we experience
today in the European Quarter. Despite the speculative nature of
this process of development, the fact that the most important tenant

90

is the body of political institutions from different political levels ,

(European, national, Flemish, Walloon, regional, and m unicipal),
enables us to rethink this sction through the city.
We propose to concentrate the presence of these public ind insti
tutional buildings in epicentres along the section - The Institutional
Promenade - stretching from the newly built European Parliament
in the west to the European Co'uncil of Ministers in the east. The
'' shrinking '' of the institutional presence into clearly identifiable
and limited city parts will produce.a new trajectory through the city,
structured as an alternation of institutions and their representative
public spaces, and new central housing proj ects that1Gan be realized
due to the concentration of office space. Moving along the Institutional
Promenade from east to west and back, be it by tram or as a pedes
trian, will confront the visitor, the citizen and the civil servant with
the new experience of gradually discovering the different sides and
qualities of Brussels through the sequence of representative sites of
the different powers that built this city.

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Culture and Education

It is undeniable that culture and

education are the ancestral roots of the European Project and that it
is upon culture and education that its future will be built. They are
the features shared by all the states gathered in the name of Europe.
Brussels is a lready a highly refined cultural city and this characteristic
can do nothing but spur the innate drive to culture and education of
the old continent in order to renovate itself.
The project installs both of these institutions throughout Europe's
capital city, but crucial attention is directed towards the two main
centralities across the ideal line of symmetry drawn over the canal:
the new University Centre in the east and, on the opposite side of the
city in the west, the new European Central Library.

91

Housing

For a city to truly perform, it must

evolve from what still constitutes its basic '' i ngredient'' : housing.
We have developed an urban model that advances housi ng as the sine
qua non for urban life in the European city. The relevance of intro
ducing housing back into the city is our response to significant social
and economic phenomena that emptied large areas, especially around
the city centre: a housing programme is vital to regenerate large
sections of the city.
By concentrating the European presence i n parts within the city,
the sprawl of office buildings is reduced and confined, allowing
the ''recovered'' spaces to slowly turn back from a monoculture of
offices into residential and more diverse city functions. Because of
this planning strategy we can insert new housing combined with
other public programmes. Continuity begins to stream from one
part of the city to the other, it re-creates a close proximity of different
urban parts that can be experienced as real parts of the city and not
as their a lienated substitute.
Interventions in the housing sector can transform the city
fabric without necessarily starting from a tabula rasa condition .
Accordingly, we envision different tactics in order to recover or gen
erate new housing units, and every part of the project includes hous
ing. For instance in the Leopold Quarter, we proposed a strategy that
recovers former housing fabric - now invaded by office activities or converts the excessive office space into housing through precise
interventions; in the European Parliament we carry out the new insti
tutional programn1e along with the integration of new housing types;
simila1ly, in Schaerbeek the nw High Speed Train ( HST) station is de
veloped as part of a larger intervention including housing units; along
the canal, two precise interventions with a core programme of housing are structured to catalyze the revitalization; in the Josaphat area
we propose to transform a potential gate towards Zaventem Airport
into a '' City within the City'' housing environment based
on a certain notion of '' Belgianness'' .

92

9.9
Accessibility

Across the project we restore the

ritual of entering and exiting the city, highlighting the expc:rience of
approaching and arrival in the city and in parts of Brussels. Each site
.
is carefully designed in order to '' manifest'' the strong connectivity .
with which the city i s alrea.dy endowed. However, this aspect i s
stressed to its maximum in order ta form a metropolitan conscious
ness and elevate public mobility to a meaningful moment of urban
life that involves public participation and common identification as
well as a sense of availability of the institutions.
In these terms the most important decision to us is to embrace
the proposal already under discussion in Brussels to locate the new
HST station to the area of Schaerbeek. The new station will not
construct the experience of entering the city anymore directly within
the pentagon, but it will involve and intensify the '' borders'' of the
new metropolitan field established through the proposal of the
''metro circuit'' .

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9.10

The Metro Circuit

We propose a new metro circuit

to establish a figure that mediates between the scales of the pentagon
and the region, fastening together east and west. Its structure doesn't
move from the centre to the periphery and avoids reducing the city
to an isotropic region where all different locations are more or less
equally accessible; rather, we break and redirect the radial organiza
tion of Brussels from monocentric to polycentric. In a single gesture,
the interaction of the system brings the city together at international,
national, regional and urban levels of connectivity; its role is comple
mentary to pre-existing and future infrastructures, integrating them
into each of the parts.
The proposed line passes through all of the project parts, tracing
a figure that inscribes the extent of the enlarged centrality of Brussels,
shifting urban proportions beyond the historic core. We alleviate
pressure on the pentagon by the circuit as it filters and reorganizes
urban connections according to a more intel ligible hierarchy, sup
ported by the different parts within a strategically limited distance.

93

,.

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Public Transport as Public Ritual. The proposa l for the new metro c i rcuit,
the new centra l it i e s and the existing public transpo rt network
94

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Utopia

The utopian aspiration of this

project i s not about architecture or about the city we have proposed
as the Capital of Europe. The utopian aspiration of this project is
about the political use of it. This project is i n itself '' real '' and it
demands a new political regime to be implemented. The essential
aspect of this new political regime will be the assumption of responsi
bility towards the making of decisions concerning the collective do
main. The emblem of this assumption of responsibility will be the
form of the city itself. Like Europe, Brussels as Capital of Europe is
not simply the conclusion of this manifesto, but a leap towards a new
political utopia beyond the hegemony of world capitalism.

95

1
2
3
4
5
6

8
9
10
11
12
13

Plateau de Koekel berg

Pare et Pala is Roya l de Laeken
Schaer beek Station
Josaphat Park
Roya l Park
Pare du C i n quantenaire
Quartier des Sq u a res
Leopo ld Park
Pare d e Wo u l we, Pare Parmenti er, Etangs Me laerts
Plan des manoeuvres
Bois d e la Cambre
Pare d e Foret
Pare D u d e n

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II.I

An Incomplete Project. Besme's arch ipelago of public parks focuses on the eastern part of Brussels
.

96

'

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

The E u ropean Quarter

The E u ropean Parl iament
The Canal Qua rter
Carrefour de l ' E urope
The Eur opean U n iversity Centre
M u ndaneum
Josaphat Qu arter
Bockstael Housing Po le
The Gate

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97

Arch i pelago City

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1 05

The European
uarter

Since the 1 9 6os, parallel to the

progress of European unification, the
former residential Leopold Q uarter
has gradually tt1rned into a large
monoft1nctional office district, mainly
occupied by European institutions and
related activities. The EU has gradually
consolidated its seat in the quarter by
taking up more than t,000,000 m2 of
privately developed office space. The
presence of the three major European
bodies, the Parliament, tl1e Commis
sion and the Council, clearly marks the
European vocation of the district. The
architecture of the quarter is reduced
to the infamous Brussels fafadisnt:
endless glass faades, accentuated with
different exotic marbles and anodic
steel details, bordering five-lane motor
ways that cut through the district to
provide access to the quarter and the
city for thousands of daily commuters.
The gradual process of transformation
of the Leopold Quarter has lead to a
situation in which an important and
vast part of Brussels remains without
urban qua l ity, both spatially and
functionally, and hence simultaneously
fails 'to be city' and to represent the
European Project beyond a purely
corporate image.
We propose to restructure the quar
ter in to three dis ti net parts: ( r ) over the
next 3 o years, at the end of tl1e existing
lease agreements for premises i n the
Leopold Quarter, all European Com

mission office space will be concen

trated around the Scht1man rounda
bout, and ( 2 ) the European Council
of Mi11isters will be housed in an
extension of the current national
war- and car museum in the Pare
du Cinquantennaire, while ( 3 ) new
housing projects will occupy the plots
that will be left empty by the vacated
European institutions and revitalize
the Leopold Quarter. These tl1ree parts
will form a clear spatial sequence as
part of the Institutional Promenade
stretching from the west of the city
(the European Parliament in the former
Tot1r & Taxis area), through the centre
of Brussels (Carrefour de l'Europe),
to the Council of Ministers i n the east.
Through this operation, we counter
the tendency of the European institu
tions to move to the city's (cheaper)
periphery, and we establish a recogniz
able and concentrated presence of
European institutions and their repre
sentative public spaces in an area
where tl1ey already occupy most of .
the urban fabric. This action equally
responds to the desire of the European
Commission for concentration of its
activities in larger premises than the
ones actt1ally occupied in the quarter,
enables the revitalization of the
Leopold Quarter as a residential dis
trict, and reflects the growing need
(or obsession) for security while pre
venting it from overtaking the public
space of an entire section of the city.
The 1 ,000,000 m2 of European
Commission office space will hence
occupy a dense complex of office build
ings around the Schuman roundabout
and incorporate the existing Berlay
mont and J ustL1s Li psi us Buildings i n
an ensemble of working environments,
gardens, lobbies, information points
and more public facilities. The seat of
the Commission will be constructed
on both sides of a central longitudinal
and public lobby space - the Gallery
that will cover a section of the axis
reacl1ing towards the pentagon (the
Rue de la Loi) in between the Pare du
Cinq uantenaire and the valley of the
Maelbeek - a small stream that is now
covered by the Chaussee d'Etterbeek.
Together with the Rue Belliard and tl1e
Rue Stevin (parallel to the Rue de la

L()i), these mai11 arteries will also de

fine a sharp perimeter for the office
complex. The central gallery on top of
Rue de la Loi will act as the spine of all
the premises of the Commission, while
its roof will function as a ceremonial
public space from where visitors, tour
ists and citizens will look back to the
city centre, or further outward to the
park and the Council buildings.
The public gallery pl1ysically pen
etrates the concentration of executive
office space, it distributes different traf
fic flows to different levels, limits the
accessibility to offices, creates connec
tions among other,vise disconnected
city parts, and acts as the common lob
by space for all of the premises. It is the
connection for employees, visitors and
citizens to the infrastructt1ral networks
on the lower levels (tram, metro, car
and train) and it facilitates all logistical
and security-related aspects associated
with tl1is immense concentration of
European bureaucracy. The gallery
is 5 70 m long and 3 7 m wide, and is
organized on five levels: ( I ) the roof,
a linear pedestrian terrace stretching
from the Cha ussee d'Etterbeek to the
Pare du Cinquantenaire; ( 2 ) the public
gallery level collecting all facilities
open to the public and the tram line
towards the Parliament; ( 3 ) the lobby
level, organizing the security barrier
between the public halls and the of
fices; ( 4 ) the undergrot1nd train statio11
level and ( 5 ) the metro sta tio11 level.
Through the simplicity and austerity
of each single building form, the com
position of office buildings creates a
dense concentration within the city
fabric and clearly defines the dimen
sion of the European Commission's
new seat within the city pla11 of
Brussels. The roof of the central spine
is a long public platform that will host
events, public gatherings, speeches and
press conferences. Unexpected apertures towards the lower levels cl1arac
terize its surface and by means of stairs
and ramps visitors will descend into
the gallery. The public gallery below
the roof will offer itself as a collector of
all public facilities (cafe, kiosk, shops,
public transport, and info centre) and
as the main public entrance to the
Conunission. By descending further
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from the public gallery level, visitors

and civil servants will enter the lobby
level. Tl1is level is the main spatial
feature of tl1e commissioners' worl<ing
environment. The austerity and rigid
ity of the office spaces is reversed in
this collective lobby by the architec
tural sumptuousness and indulgence
articulated in three main sections,
each corresponding to a specific spa
tial quality and characterized by a
specific level of security and perme
ability. Towards the Leopold Qt1arter,
the lobby space is conceived as a glass
house garden; the central section will
provide accessibility to the Berlay
n1ont Building on the one side, and
to the Justus Lipsius Building on the
other side. The central position makes
this space the primary site for the cer
emonial welcoming of important in
ternational guests. The third section
of tl1e gallery next to the park will be
located underground, due to the slo
ping topography of the area. By means
of a series of tunnels, stairs and eleva
tors, employees and visitors will as
cend to the spaces in between the par
allel slabs marking the edge towards
the Pare du Cinquantenaire. Due to
their underground condition, these
buildings will be considered the most
secure of all the Commission premises
- the place where important decisions
will be made and where classified
meetings between political leaders will
take place in total discretion.
The southern edge of the office
com pl ex, between the existing Justus
Li psi us Building and the Rue Beliard,
a terraced public garden will mediate
the topographic descent and lead to
the new International Press Centre.
From this lowest point, a walking
path will bring the journalist up to
the central gallery.
The proposed concentration of
European office space on top of the
Schuman Station makes it possible
to liberate a considerable amount of
square metres within the European
Quarter. This scenario will be phased
over the next 3 o years, according to
the termination of existing rental
contracts. While awaiting the entire
relocation of all European office
space, we suggest to reactivate the
.

ground level of the premises by modi

fying the architecture of the lobbies.
Gradually, new housing units will
then replace l iberated office buildings.
The office buildings can be trans
formed into residences according to
two scenarios: either being converted
and refurbished as residences or by
the demolition of specific parts of the
bL1ilding blocks and the insertion of
new housing types connected to an
extension of public space.
The main artery between the Com
mission's gallery and the Carrefour de
I 'Europe, the Rue de la Loi, will expe
rience a dramatic reduction of traffic
congestion: the five.... lane motorway
will be diverted into the existing longi
tudinal underground parking area,
located between the metro tunnel and
the ground level, which will hence be
only accessible to local traffic. These
interventions will transform the expe
rience of the urban blocks while re
taining their spatial continL1ity. The
symmetry of the new buildings along
the Rue de la Loi will reinforce the
existing axis, while the experience of
the ground level will alter through the
sequence of public spaces extending
the space of the axis. Tl1e newly in
serted housing and commercial pro
gramme, the cutting of the ground
floor of many buildings along the road
as well as the new tram line, will con
vert the axis from a canyon into a rich
sequence of public spaces and. pro
grammes, and a constitutive part of
the Institutional Promenade between
the seat of the Commission and the
Carrefour de I 'Europe.

1
2
3

E u ropean Counc i l of M i n isters (located i n the Pare du

Ci nqu antenai re)
G round E u rope (concentration of the
E u ropean Commission : spine + lobby)
Leopold Quarter (housing development and gradual
opening of the ground level of the existing b u i l d i ngs)

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1 18

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The European
Parliament
At the western extreme of the Institu
tional Promenade, the Parliament of
the European Union is constructed in
the Tour & Taxis area, a former goods
train station. The now vacated area is
extremely wide and empty and has
formed a large isolated hole in the city
fabric since the very beginning of its
development. Situated along the canal,
between the Royal Palace in Laken and
the axis to the Koekelberg Cathedral,
the area is surrounded by activities
related to the port of Brussels. This
project aims to see the construction
of the institution that accommodates
the gatherings of the representatives
of more than 400,000,000 Europeans
as a means to reinsert this area into
the city without erasing the potentials
offered by its vastness. A new, big
building will be used as a ''tool'' that
is able to show the dimensions of the '
area and to give these dimensions back
to the city. We imagine an extremely
repetitive, flat building in the form of
an irregular cross, able to measure the
distances and the different conditions
at its margins through its very regular
structure. The flat building literally
crosses the area, trying to define new
links with the neighbouring regions.
The southern end of the building meets
Picard Street at the crossing of the ca
nal (a new public space is planned be
tween the new building and the canal),

the western end of the building stops

in front of the artificial valley that once
brought trains to Tour & Taxis {the
valley is transformed into a public gar
den ), the northern end faces Claessens
Street and the eastern end lands on the
opposite side of the canal at Place des
Armateurs. The parts of Tour & Taxis
that are not covered by the flat building
will be occupied either by new housing
developn1ents or by the already exist
ing industrial buildings. In the centre
of the plot, the existing train station
will be kept and drastically restored.
The building will host a public gallery
with shops and small services for the
quarter such as kindergartens, schools,
a market and indoor sport facilities.
The new l1ousing region southwest
of the flat building facing Picard Street
is made of four-storey row houses
( 2 . 500 units). The row houses are
arranged in r 20-m-long, 4 5-m-wide
blocks that are oriented east-west,
with private gardens in the middle.
The hot1ses are slightly higher than the
flat building. Another residential area
is located to the northwest of the flat
building. North of this settlement, the
existing storage facilities are reorgan
ized and expanded in connection with
the new port infrastructures placed in
the northern part of the flat building.
The definition of a regular street pat
tern provides a common organization
to both existing and new industrial
buildings.
The flat building is 1 0 m high,
r 1 5 0 m long (north-south) and 8 50 m
wide (east-west) . It contains the offices,
assembly halls and archives of the
European Parliament, a car park with
2,000 parking places, the station of
the Metro Circuit, storage and offices
related to port activity, a public swim
ming pool with gyms and other sports
facilities, restaurants, clubs and discos.
The flat building has a wide public roof
( 1 8 2, 500 m1) collecting the entrances
to the very different facilities hidden
below. The roof of the flat building is
easily accessible via ramps and escala
,.
tors placed along its borders. Cars can
access the roof from the slope facing
Picard Street. Due to a difference in
height, the flat building can be directly
accessed at roof level at its western

border; from the valley in the north,

people can enter the wide public space
con rained in .the western wing at
ground level.
The building is flat to the point of
disappearance. It is a receptacle for
public space - an artificial field for
metropolitan experience. More than
40 per cent of the building surface is
public space. The building hows itself
as a product of reasonable, yet highly
questionable, decisions. The architec
ture shows its responsibility towards
the institutions it hosts by exposing the
artificial, abstract, political nature of
the arguments that define its forn1. For
this reason, the firt duty of the build
ing is to show that there is no nece sity
for it: the building is not natural, it is
not obvious. Its architecture can be
understood, and therefore refused.
The flat building is a monument.
A monument in which t11ere is no
spectacle to be seen except for the be
haviours of the observers themselves.
A monument with nothing to express,
nevertheless an explicit monument: a
rational attempt to imagine and expose
a project of civilization, to define a
common ground for its different visi
tors. In this sense, the flat building is
a monument for the multitude: it pro
vides and j uxtaposes spaces for highly
formalized political events and spaces
for everyday activities. It offers a
co1nplex spatial sequence, and acts
as a machine to record emptiness and
congestion; it defines a multiple, yet
common landscape. As architecture,
the flat building shows an understand
ing of multiplicity that does not imme
diately coincide with a useless collec
tion of quarrelsome minorities. On
the contrary, the architecture of the
flat building involves the definition
of a common field for the exchange of
experiences; it suggests and in1agines
the possibility for the multitude to
share a common political project.
The roof of the flat building is punc
tuated by circular skylights. The mo
notonous series of circles reduces the
surface to a translucent blanket cover
ing the complicated metropolitan belly.
The repetition of circular holes reduces
the complexity of the programme of
the building to a kind of Morse alpha-

1 20

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The juxtapo sition of housing, the European parliament, the canal and the harbour

1 21

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bet transcription. It is only the changes

in the rhythm of circular holes that
testifies to the di fferent activities hid
den below the public roof. The roof
of the flat building collects all kinds of
monumental furniture; the flat building is covered with the monumental
debris of European history. Colossal
heads of dead European philosophers
and dead European musicians crowd
the roof of the flat building. By reduc
ing its architecture to extreme silence
and abstraction, the flat building opens
up an unpredictable possibility for a
popular, figurative representation of
Europe. By absolutely denying any
possibility of an architecture par/ante,
the flat building prepares a field for
iconic gymnastics. The emptiness of
the flat building faces Europe with the
problem of its iconic definition, the
gigantic heads face Europe with the
problem of its cultural definition.
The flat building couples the icy
equilibrium of a Leonidov platform
with the massive iconic power of
Mount Rushmore's Presidents' Heads.
The flat building has the childish purity
of both: it is as simple as a white, icy
artificial beach; it is as naive and gener
ous as the gigantic heads carved in the
rocks of North Dakota.
The flat building has no style; inno
cent as a carrier, silent as the desert.
The architecture of the flat building
vanishes, thanks to its reduction to
pure plan.

1 22

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Entrance to the European Parliament from Bockstael Housing Pole (Entrance to the C i rca Massimo)

1 23

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roof of the C i rca Massimo and the North Quarter)

1 25

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E n trance to Rue Picard

Wide ramp lea d i n g to roof, accessible to cars
Offices for staff
Offices for the members of par I ia ment, two per member
S m a l l meet i ng rooms
Metro C i rc u it Stat ion
Formal entrance to parl iament
D i scotheque
Kitchen
Rest a u ra nt, banquet,
places
Lobby
Offices a rchive
A rc h i ve/ L i b rary
Study area arch ive
Dancing school
A rt gal lery
Club
.
Gymnastic c l u b
Wa l kway overlook i ng canal
I ndoor s w i m m i n g pool
Sauna
Outdoor s w i m m i n g pool
I nternal street escalators leading to the roof

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1 26

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1 27

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Wide ramp lead i ng to the roof, access i b l e to cars

Offices for the members of p a r l i ament, two per member
Offices for p o l i t i c a l group s a n d comm ittees
S hops
Courtyard
Vo id
Escalators leading to the roof of the b u i l d i n g
K iosk
P u b lic toi lets, f ac i l i ties
Ramp lead i n g u p to Metro C i rcuit Station
P u b l i c car park,
places
Storage space for warehouses
Car access from Avenue du Port
Escalators lead i ng to the roof
Port d e Bruxelles, principal office
Gas stat ion
E ntrance Q u a i d e W i l lebroeck

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1 29

Ass embly level

1 Courtyard
2 Meet i ng rooms for political groups a n d comm ittees,
equ i pped with s i m u ltaneous translation booths
A s se m b l y of the E u ropean Par I ia ment
4 S m a l l meet i ng rooms
V I P d rop off
6 P ress center
7 TV st u d i o
8 Rad i o stu d i o
9 Print room
1 0 Car park for members and p a r l iament staff, 647 places
1 1 Cafeteria
1 2 Offices

Parking level
1 Tra ns lators Lobby
2 27 s i m u ltaneous translation booths
Visitors entrance
4 Documentation, exhibition
Storage par I iament
6 Storage archive
7 Storage d i scotheque
8 Storage rest a u r a nt
9 P u b l i c car park, 486 places

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The Canal

uarter

Facing Tour & Taxis, on the other side

of the canal, the Beco Basin housing
project confronts the flatness of the
Parliament with an ensemble of a part
ment buildings positioned in the area
between the North Quarter and Sta
tion and the canal, characterized by
a loose and heterogeneous fabric of
varying scale. Together with the new
public baths and residences at Porte
de Ninove, the Beco Basin project aims
to requalify the canal as the spine of
a new residential quarter - the Canal
Quarter. The corridor along the canal
a former industrial section of the lower
city, is currently one of the most het
erogeneous parts of the city, inhabited
by a 11ighly diverse socioeconomic
composition of inhabitants. It is a part
of the city that is currently neglected
and to many citizens is the symbol of
the east-west disconnection and imbal
ance. The two interventions at the Beco
Basin and Porte de Ninove aim to give
a clear and recognizable span and
dimension to the Canal Quarter and
establish the first two balconies on the
water. These two points refer to each
other through the line of the canal it
self, but are equally bound to tl1e new
Gate in the nortl1, and the Mundaneum
further south - both along the canal.
With tl1e advent of these new public
institutions, the pressure on this area
will undoubtedly grow, and the
Canal Quarter will accommodate
an increased population.
The Beco Basin is a precise 'piece of

city, that separates the canal from the

Allee Verte - tl1e currently fragmented
green area between the canal and the
North Quarter. The sequence of slabs,
positioned perpendicular to the canal,
rests on a continuous gallery with
commercial and civic functions facing
the Allee Verte. In between the slabs,
towards the canal, covered lobby spac
es accommodate congresses, day care
centres and other civic programmes
looking towards the Parliament and
the canal. By providing a critical mass,
the ensemble prevents the site from
stagnation that might seamlessly
discharge into an uncontrollable
haphazard development. It mediates
tl1e heterogeneous dynamics of the
surrounding city parts and the har
bour, and delimits the open space as
a fixed distance towards the North
Quarter and the adjacent neighbour
hoods - hence also announcing the
location of the Parliament and the
canal to passers-by strolling along
the Institutional Promenade.
While Beco Basin is defined by its
position on the sequence between the
Parliament and the Manhattan Project,
the Porte de Ninove project is a precise
installation of a square of public baths,
a gymnasium and housing towers over
the canal. The building is an enclosed
square in the midst of the current Porte
de Ninove that confronts the fragment
ed borders and defines a centre and
pivotal point precisely in a curve of
the canal and the ring road along the
pentagon. The square is positioned
precisely on t11e axis coming from the
inner city and passing between the
symmetrical historical 'gate buildings'
before encountering the perfectly
perpendicular edge of the square and
descending into the tunnel under the
baths and canal (with access to the
underground parking) t11at brings
drivers to the other side. The project
adds an increased density of housing to
the site, concentrating new built mass
in towers that delimit the square that
contains the public baths and the gym
nasium. From the adjacent neighbour
hoods, citizens will enter the public
baths by descendi11g via one of the
staircases on the surrounding public
space. The high underground interior

is defined by a forest of pillars and

will capture a diffused light from the
perforated roof. Access to the roof is
only possible from the baths, and will
function as an enclosed intimate space
in the midst of the city. From the roof,
people will look towards the green
park on the other bank of the canal
and hear the city's increasing conges
tion, while their view of the direct sur
roundings is blocked by the gymna
sium which encloses the interior. This
gymnasium will ft1nction as a square
bridge over the canal, and will provide
access to the housing towers that reside
on top of the square.
Together) the two project parts sug
gest a fusion of the large representative
scale with the everyday body of the city
that blends the presence of institutions
and everyday l i fe in the confrontation
between the new Parliament and the
Beco Basin project, the EU Central
Library with the Port de Ninove
project and, more generally, the canal
as a new symbolic presence that relates
to city life. The canal as a linear public
artery is a foil to the existing nine
teenth-century systems already in place
in the eastern neighbourhoods that
successfully provide those populations
with a public green asset. The section
of the canal becomes a counterpart to
the elevated boulevard on top of the
Central Junction: just like the Central
Junction (and Carrefour de ! , Europe)
demonstrates the potential of topogra
phy in terms of the high points and es
carpn1ents, the watershed of the Senne
River (now vaulted) and the 'lowest
section in Brussels' is recovered as a
defining asset for a complementary
quarter in the west.

1 32

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Public Space Inside-Out, Beco Basin (view of t h e lobby level towards the European Parliament)
1 33

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1 37

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The Carrefour de
l' Europe
For more than a century, the very cen
tre of Brussels has been the concrete
subject (and victim according to many)
of radical architectural and urban
speculation. Regardless of the success
or failure of these grand projects, we
cannot negate the concrete impact of a
bold belief in modernity and progress
in the city of Brussels. Among the
many speculations and built ideas, the
'Jonction Nord-Midi' can rightly be
named e project of the century. The
construction of the underground con
nection between the former northern
and southern terminal railway stations
through the historical pentagon is the
project that best symbolizes the early
ambitions of Belgium as a nation-state.
The supposedly 'derelict' medieval
quarters on the trajectory have been
demolished to allow a dramatic mod
ernization of the city centre: close to
the Grand Place, Victor Horta de
signed the new Central Station, while
on top of the entire scar of the railway
tunnel, a sequence of national repre
sentative monuments 11as bee11 con
structed, starting with the 'National
Administrative City' on the northern
edge, the National Bank, the Telex
Building, tl1e headquarters of the
former national airlines company,
tl1e Sabena Building (equipped with a
check-in lobby from which a direct
access to a reserved platform in the
Central Station brought passengers

directly to the airport), the National

Congress Centre and the National
Albertina Library. A new four-lane
urban boulevard along the topograph
ic divide provides access to tl1e under
ground garages of these buildings and
crosses precisely in front of the Central
Station a perpendicular ioad leading
to the Leopold Quarter and the eastern
part of the city. As Brussels was the
crossroads of Europe, this traffic
j u nction in the middle of the city was
baptized the Carrefour de ! 'Europe
( Europe's crossing), and would sym
bolically connect the northern, south
ern, eastern and western parts of
Europe. The combination of a project
of national representation with the
sincere belief in accessibility ( both by
public transport and by car) has made
this scar, positioned precisely between
the upper and lower city, the subject of
an ongoing debate and the source of
many (counter-) projects. The continu
ous protests and subsequent proposals
by A.R.A. U. (Atelier de Recherche et
d' Action Urbaine), arguing for tl1e
reconstruction of the European City,
have finally succeeded in replacing the
existing void (parking lot) in front of
the Central Station with the current
neo-traditional architecture of the
Carrefour de l'Europe.
Situated on the Institucional Prom
enade between the European Council
of Ministers (Pare du Cinquantenaire)
and the European Parliament (Tour &
Taxis), this project for the Carrefotu
de !'Europe will redefine the main gate
to the city as the seat for the regional
authorities, and exploit the strong top
ographic difference in the terrain to
frame and organize a series of urban
pt1blic spaces. As the epicentre of a
larger operation along the north-south
j unction and the parallel boulevard,
the relation between the upper and
lower city will be readdressed in a se
ries of urban balconies that will accen
tuate the descent from the upper to the
lower city. By diverting the traffic on
the boulevard, the zone in between the
Saint-Gudula Cathedral (also the tram
station on the line from Parliament to
Council) and the Mont des Arts will
become a pedestrian zone that will
form a longitudinal balcony overlook-

ing the historical city fabric below.

Perpendicular to this longitudinal pe
destrian zone, this balcony opens up
onto a large and flat square bordered
by the two vertical slabs that will re
place the neo-traditional construction s
and house the regional administra
tions. This square will open up the now
hidden direct opposition of the medi
eval city and the national monuments ,
and provide a magnificent view to
wards the tower of the city hall and the
west of the city. Under the surface of
this square, the entrances and public
halls of the regional administrations
and institutions, as well as the direct
access to the intermediate level of the
Central Station will be located. Com
muters, inhabitants and tourists will
hence be able to leave Central Station
through the spaces Victor Horta had
conceived as exits at the time of con
struction of the station, and will leave
the hill slope at the level of the medi
eval city directly onto the lower square.
Through the demolition of the existing
Carrefour de !'Europe and the con
st1uction of a simple urban composi
tion, a new foyer to the city is organ
ized. This will delimit the space for the
extreme proximity of the medieval ilot
sacre, the Belgian national institutions
and the Central Station, and that, as
the pivotal point on the Institutional
Promenade that extends to the east and
the west, will symbolize the envisioned
balance in the city.

1 40

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Potemkin in Reverse (reconstruction project for the Carrefour de l ' Europe, A . R . A . U . , 1976)
1 41

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Superi mposed plan, Ca rrefour de ! ' E u rope

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The European
University Centre

Complementary to the Mundaneum

Project in the west, this European
centre of culture and education is
dedicated to higher education and
university programmes. The site of the
European Unjversity Centre borders
the former mil itary training area - a
large area in the shape of a horseshoe
along the second ring that is currently
occupied by the campus of the two
Universities of Brussels (French and
Dutch speaking). Situated at the south
ern end of the eastern composition
of city parts along this second ring
(The European Quarter and Josaphat
Quarter), the University Centre is the
third element of a clear and legible
representative triad of housing, institu
tional space and culture. Being situated
at a relative distance from the penta
gon, the area is the confluence of sev
eral infrastructures ( metro, train and
car) and a main entry point or gate
to the city. The loose collection of ele
ments that surrounds this location the universities, a cemetery, residential
slabs, office blocks and detached
houses - now clearly reads as the edge
betwee11 city and suburb. The existing
university campus does not invite pe
destrians to cross from one neighbour
hood to the other, as it is isolated by the
many transport arteries at its different
borders: entry roads from the highway
(third ring), maintenance facilities for
railway wagons and public busses and

four existing railway and metro sta

tions. The area southeast of the cam
pus has been disregarded as the back
yard of the university.
By concentrating the European
University Centre in one unique circu
lar building, situated in the middle of
an artificial landscape, on top of three
railway stations (including the new
stop on the Metro Circuit) and the
main entry road, the project establishes
a clear form as a complement to the
university campus's horseshoe shape.
The condition of scattered accessibility
in this area is reorganized into this one
centre with access at different levels:
a newly constructed pedestrian ground
where this was absent, a new road for
vehicular traffic, and the new railway
station built on the existing railway
lines. The circular building will house
the European University centre and
have temporary and permanent hous
ing facilities on top, while its basement
will accommodate one of the main
entry- and interchange stations of the
city, Delta Station. The purely cylindri
cal exterior of the building embraces
a huge covered void: an internal public
atrium with retail facilities along its
perimeter; the lower floors contain
the interchange station between the
regional, the metropolitan, and the
urban public transport systems ( respec
tively tl1e regional express network,
the metro circuit and the metro). The
first floors of the cylindrical building
contain the departinents of the Euro
pean University Centre and give access
to the three auditoria (the only three
volumes in the central atrium). The
higher floors contain the residences.
Commuters, academics and students
arriving from the city's periphery
via the regional express network, or
from a silent moment of study in the
European Central Library (Munda
neum), will surface in the forest of
columns of the covered central atrium
before they enter the auditoriums and
offices; or before they leave the build
ing and enter the forest of trees on their
way to the University of Brussels. This
landscape establishes a new ground
that col lects the existing surrounding
fragments and relates them to the new
core of the area.

1 46

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151

Mundaneum
This project of culture and education
in the west of Brussels refers to tl1e
project that Paul Otlet and Henri
Lafontaine started in 1 9 1 9 : the crea
tion of a Mundaneum in Brussels'
Cinquantenaire Area. The ambition
was to create a centre of centres, or
a world database of k nowledge - ''a
temple devoted to knowledge, educa
tion and fraternity among people'',
''a representation of the world and
what it contains''. To be able to collect
and archive this knowledge, Otlet de
veloped a standard classification sys
tem based on referential cards. This is
the Universal Decimal Classification
system that would simplify scientific
research by establishing links between
different forms and areas of knowl
edge. It is the first database, which also
formed the basis for hypertext. Otlet's
and Lafontaine's initiative was not
an isolated case: at the same time,
] orge Luis Borges' imagined the
Library of Babel as a place that con
tains t'all the possible combinations
of the twenty-odd orthographical sym
bols . . . the translation of every book
in all languages, the interpolations of
every book in all books''. The intellec
tual position of these ideas is directed
towards universalism rather tl1an glo
balization. Universalism is seen as a
new tendency that tries to recuperate
the universal as a concept for radical
political needs, closer to the welfare
state. Besed on the idea of Paul Otlet
i n I 9 28 , Le Corbusier designed the

project for the Mundaneum i11 Geneva,

the capital of the League of Nations.
Whereas Le Corbusier's design was
projected onto a virgin site, the chosen
location on which to actualize the
Mundaneum project in Brussels is an
old industrial area close to the West
Station and reaching towards the fa
mous Anderlecht Market across the
canal. The West Station area is consid
ered problematic, mainly because of
the concentration of the poorest inhab
itants of multiethnic origin i n this part
of the city. The assertiveness provided
by a new image of the area, enhanced
by the Mundaneum, attempts to rescue
this social controversy. To the linguisti
cally and culturally diverse population
of the adjacent neighbourhoods, and
to the cosmopolitan population of
Europe's capital, the Mundaneum aims
to spatially represent the universal
p1inciples of Otlet's project.
The programme of the ensemble
consists of the European Central
Library, the Etiropean EdL1cation
Coordination Centre, the European
Institute of Languages and the
Language University, and a European
School. The Central Library, cooperat
ing with national libraries, provides
the links, translations and information
to be elaborated and processed. Books,
cinema, newspapers, music, etcetera
would be digitized and saved in one
place; 260,000,000 items now stored
on the shelves of 2 5 national libraries
in 4 3 different languages would all be
organized with the uoc system that
Paul Otlet developed. The European
Education Coordination Centre (EECC)
for primary and secondary schools will
host debates on education, serve as the
coordination point of the educational
network, and promote the exchange
among countries. The European Insti
tute of Languages and the Language
University are platforms for transla
tion and multilingual inte1change.
The European School in its turn caters
to a linguistically and culturally diverse
population and operates up to 20 lan
guages at the same site.
The Mundaneum itself is conceived
as a series of parallel linear buildings
perpendicular to the canal, stretching
from the West Station and the railway

lines at tl1e site's western edge to the

market on tl1e other side of the canal.
Each of the above-mentioned institu
tions will occupy a clearly delimited
part of this large structure, while the
intermediate spaces will accommodate
a continuous lobby space that organ
izes the entrances to the different insti
tutions, the reading 1ooms of tl1e li
brary, the facilities and meeting rooms
of the EECC, as well as the auditoria of
the Langt1age Un iversity. As the main
interchange between regional and ur
ban public transport, the West Statjon
is conceived as the longitudinal under
ground connection between the plator ms of the metro and railway. F ro1n
this station, visitors will enter the lob
by of the European Central Library.
While looking through the lobby over
the canal to the Midi Tower at South
Station, we see people ascending the
escalators into the enclosed slabs tl1at
contain and protect the volumes from
the light entering through the glass
roof. When conti11uing our interior
wa 1 k over the canal, we leave the
building through the main entrance
that faces the market hall. The slabs
containing the EECC the European
School and the Language University
enclose the market hall, and delimit a
clear square around this historical
building.
To the southwest of the institutional
conglomerate, parallel to the longitudi
nal buildings, a sequence of four-storey
residential buildings stitches the frag
mented and vacant sites of the sur
rounding neighbourl1ood into a con
tinuous fa bric. The spaces between the
linear residential buildings are alter
nately paved and planted as a park. In
this way, the housing project defines a
new park that descends and opens the
adjacent fabric towards the canal.
Where the residences adjust to the ex
istjng buildings and programmes, new
public spaces with sports facilities and
playgrounds are laid out. The Munda
neum hence frames a sequence of views
from the west through the lobby, or i11
between the new housing blocks, on
the canal and towards the rising slope
and the urban counterparts in the east
of the city.

1 52

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line as urban ethic)

1 55

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Ent rance to the I nstitute of Languages

European LanguagesTranslation Center
Language Research I nstitute
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I nstitute of languages
Europea n Library
Access to underground car park
Catalogues and database
Access from the car park
Cafeteria
West Stat ion

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Station)

1 57

The osaphat
uarter

The vacant site of the former Josaphat

Station has a strategic potential be
cause of its position between the city
centre, the European Quarter and the
international airport i n the northeast.
The Metro Circuit directly connects
the site to the new High Speed Train
Station (the Gate) in the north, and
the European University Centre in the
southeast. As the mirror image of the
Bockstael housing pole in the west,
the site is an ideal host for housing
. and working: it can simultaneously
address the desires of the Bruxellois to
move out of the city to its more rural
surroundings, while it can attract busi
nesses that want to be located in prox
imity to the airport. Such a strategy
also complements the proposal for
tl1e European Quarter to concentrate
European office spaces and convert
part of the vacated structures into
residences. Hence josaphat becomes
a pendant of the European Quarter
- a second example of a well-integrat
ed housing district and office park,
located inside the city of Brussels. The
oval-shaped site is surrounded by a
continuous urban fabric towards the
south and a suburban tisst1e of row
houses in all other directions. Tall
apartment slabs are scattered across
the surrounding area in various posi
tions and orientations, forming wall
like borders. Located directly on the
opposite side of the second ring that

connects this housing pole with the

European Quarter and the European
University Centre, is the Josaphat
Park: a picturesque piece of landscape
in the English Garden Style that has
added a very powerful urban device
to the community of Schaerbeek since
jt opened in June 1 904. The park is
planted with rare trees and includes
basins and rock gardens, sculptures, a
mini-golf course, an archery range, and
various sports and playing fields, all
contributing to the area being known
as one of the most pleasant residential
d istricts of Brussels.
The city today is characterized by
two problematic tendencies, each con
cerning and affecting at the mass per
ception and experience of the city. The
first is the dramatic need for housing,
in combination with the very strong
desire of Belgians to live in an individual house with a garden - a fact
mirrored in the immense suburbaniza
tion of the entire territory of the coun
try. The second problem is the tenden
cy of developing so-called business
parks. Such clusters of offices are part
of the wider global phenomenon of
peripheral urbanization in the form
of giant developments on the fringes
of cities. In Brussels, business parks
grow outside the body of the city, close
to infrastructure arteries and most
often with the greatest possible prox
imity to the airport. Although projects
of this kind see themselves as small
'4cities'', they are stripped of the pos
sibility of ever becoming truly urban
environments.
Answering these two problems, a
dense residential and office district is
proposed at Josaphat. The ingredients
of this operation consist of the very
layers that compose the Belgian land
scape: infrastructure, row houses,
apartment blocks, office towers, the
forest, and the train as protagonist - all
elements with significant symbolic
power when closely juxtaposed, as in
the paintings of Paul Delvaux. At first,
strips of row houses cover the majority
of the st1rface of the site. They consist
of approximately 1 , 8 50 houses of two
to four floors, each with its own gar
den. Unlike Belgian row houses that
traditionally grow along infrastruc

ture, these houses are placed perpen

dicular to the railway lines so as to
allow the moving trains to be perceived
from all streets and public spaces.
Office and apartment towers grow in
places as extrusions of the housing
rows and create centres of density and
activity. Different types and sizes' of
public and semi-public spaces ensure
the creation of rnicroclimates and iden
tifiable neighbourhoods.
The row houses merge with the sub
urban surroundings in terms of their
common scale and architectural lan
guage, while their repetitive pattern
introduces a geometrical, intelligible
and clear urban form into the area.
The office-apartment rowers create a
physical continuity witl1 the surround
ing freestanding flats.
Cars enter the site only through a
few chosen arteries i n continuity with
the adjacent streets, leading to the un
derground parking garage. Escalators
from the underground car parl< lead to
pedestrian piazzas on the ground level.
Car circulation is arranged in such a
way that it is never seen from the pub
lic spaces. This project hence proposes
an alternative to the dilemma between
two antithetic ways of living: the urban
and the rural. Like Belgian Surrealist
painting, the Josaphat Quarter brings
together disparate elements and scales,
here not brought together as a collage,
but as a repetitive sequence of elements
that together compose a dense residen
tial and office district - a clear urban
form as the eastern housing pole.

1 58

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1 59

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1 62

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1 63

H
The' Bockstael
Housing Pole
The existing railway entrenchments
parallel to the canal - two strong
linear features of Brussels' western
morphology - will foster a new city
housing district in the vicinity of
the European Parliament, as the
western complement of the Josaphat
Quarter (the pendant of the European
Quarter). The route of the railway lines
west of the canal, running from the
Mundaneum to the north, is conceived
as the symmetrical counterpart of the
unchieved second ring of the city. The
project will highlight this trace, form
ing a strong figure embedded in a new
urban geography, as the ideal counter
balance for the bow figure in the east,
ranging from the European University
Centre, the Pare du Cinquantenaire
and the European quarter, to the
Josaphat Quarter.
Unlike tl1e east, throughout the en
tire western part of the city, infrastruc
tural trajectories are open air scars that
cut the urban fabric apart. We propose
to reverse this sitL1ation by exploiting
the existing scar of the railway corridor
for the construction of a new residen
tial quarter that will enhance the
strong charisma and urban visibility of
this part of the city. The urban scar will
not be healed by building in the exist
ing void. Nevertheless, a sequence of
bridge buildings will establish simple
connections across the railway lines.
The buildings create an urban scenog

raphy or sequence that emanates a

visual tension, escaping the forgotten
backyard situation typical of urban
train journeys for the passengers.
At ground level, the eastern side of
the new district will consist of a linear
volume that contains the public stair
cases towards the bridge level, the en
trances to the residences, and a series
of ateliers. Connecting the two sides
of the tracks, the housing and office
buildings cross the railway lines while
the natural landscape reconciles the
transition between the two different
types of urban fabrics. Preserving the
natural featu1es of the open space, the
whole site is a positive inversion of
the surrounding context. Divided by
different types of paving and plants,
the ground level surface underneath
the bridge buildings provides a diverse
landscape of sports facilities and a lon
gitudinal park that will function as the
collective garden for the inhabitants
living above it. Towards the southern
end of the newly built quarter, the park
continues to the east and moves into
the val ley that leads us back to the
.
Parliament.

1 64

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1 65

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The Gate

Under a pervasive propaganda, claim

ing that only the total accessibility of
tl1e very city centre via public transport
and by car would turn Brussels into a
paradign1atic modern 1netropolis, the
city has literally become the crossroads
of Europe, and finally, partly for that
same reason, the Capital of Europe.
Today, at a moment wl1en the new
metropolitan scale of the city is being
defined, Brussels requires a proper
entrance to the city - a Gate to the city
and to Europe. Therefore, following
earlier studies, we propose to relocate
the High Speed Train (HST) Station
from the South Station to the Schaer
beek Formation Station. This area is
the largest vacant site of the city,
stretching from the local railway sta
tion in Schaerbeek (second ring) to the
highway (third ring) in the north. Most
of the area is vacant, undeveloped
and dominated by old transportation
infrastructure and related facilities.
It consists of extremely different parts,
including railway tracks, asphalt sur
faces, warehouses, port facilities and
various patches of green. However, it
is also a place that gatl1ers mysteriou
metropolitan connections with aban
doned areas of wilderness and the
almost forgotten villages arotmd the
airport. Topographically, it coincides
with the valley of the Senne River.
Its main feature is its vastness.
In order to sustain this void, we pro
pose to concentrate all development
into one single urban a rtefact. Bearing

in mind that the Formation Station is

flanked by two distinct parts of the city
divided by tl1e canal, the project con
centrates and j uxtaposes the office and
housing development - together with
the public facilities of the HST Station,
bus station and congress centre - into
a single bridge structure. The bridge
development is positioned perpendicu
lar to the rive1 and the railway tracks,
marking tl1e edge of the city and be
coming the real ''Janus-faced Gate''
overlooking the city on one side while
leaving the landscape green behind its
back. The preserved void will be grad
ually turned into a park over the next
5 0 years. Together witl1 the Royal Park
of Laken, this new natural asset will be
the alter ego of the forest to the south
of tl1e city - one of the main assets
of the city. The axis running from La
Camb1e, the finger of the forest enter
ing the city fro1n the southeast, along
Avenue Louise, the Palace of Justice,
the Royal Street and the Central Junc
tion, culminating in the new HST Sta
tion in the north, will then connect the
northern and soutl1ern natural assets
that will span the city of Brt1ssels.
As an alternative to the commonly
built longitudinal station typology,
which tends to cut and separate the
city fabric, the HST Station - literally a
bridge - connects rather than divides.
The bridge is a horizontal flat plane,
and only where the structt1re touches
the ground will it render a specific
architectural context. Consequently,
the environment and the landscape are
material for tl1e architecture and in
separable from it. The two banks of the
Senne River and the park landscapes
that lie behind them affect the form
of the bridge. The bridge itself is envi
sioned as an artificial landscape.
Including the parks on both sides,
the bridge is 1 , 500 m long and 2 5 5 m
wide with a varying height from 4 to
r o m. It consists of three layers: tl1e
infrastructure, the big public facilities
and the grid. The whole project is
based on a 7 . 5 x 7 . 5 m grid and on the
patio ho11se typology, suitable for both
office and housing programmes. These
units will be accessible from tl1e top of
the bridge platform, so that visitors
and inhabita11ts will enjoy the land-

scape that the upper canopies of the

trees in the patios will create. The two
public galleries on each side of the
bridge are also accessible from the pe
destrian. roof. One, overlooking the
city, contains shops, restau1ants and
small facilities while the other, over
looking the park, has fitness and well
ness centres and serves as an entrance
to the recreational area of the new park
behind the station. The congress cen
tre, regional bus statio11 and HST Sta
tion - with an airport check-in - are
immersed in the patio grid and carve
out the artificial landscape within the
horizontal artefact. The rl1ythm of the
grid con1bined witl1 tl1e continuous
carpet of tree canopies rising up from
tl1e sunken patios blt1r the border
between landscape and architecture.
Tl1erefore, it is very difficult to say
wl1ether tl1is bridge is one building, a
series of buildings, city or landscape.
The infrastructure layer with the ve
hicular bridge on the park side of the
station cuts and eats t1p the platform,
while the front side of the station holds
only the public transport and therefore
the platform in that location remains
untouched. The hovering roof of the
station is the only element that is above
the level of the platform. Because of its
scale, dimension, direction and pro
gramme, the bridge has the capacity to
influence the surroundi11g landscape.
It is a catalyst for the further develop
ment of the area, legible not merely as
an image, but as a real contribution to
the experience of the city.

1 68

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1 69

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1 71

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1 73

'

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1 77

T h i n k i ng E u rope

1 85

A rc h itect u re after L i bera l i sm

205

B r u s s e l s- E u rope: A n Apo r i a ?

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For A New M o n u m enta l i t y

225

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1 76

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Mario Tronti

We cannot say '' D ie Konstitution oder Europa '' , as Novalis once

said '' Die Christenheit oder Europa'' . And because we cannot say
this, we have already failed to grasp the problem. Here oder means
'' or'' . It indicates not an alternative but an equivalence, expressing
the same idea in different terms. It won't be this Constitution that
makes Europe, but can any Constitution make Europe ?
This is the point I feel compelled to prefix to this brief theoretical
essay, which seeks to encourage a reading of the text of the
Constitutional Treaty, while the heads of state sign it and ordinary
c1t1zens ignore 1t.
I thereore take for granted the geophilosophical dimension of
the problem of Europe: this is not a new aspect, it has been explored
in refined contributions by philosophers such as Massimo Cacciari,
Biagio De Giovanni, Jurgen Habermas and Etienne Ba li bar, to cite
only the first names that come to mind. But within the geo-philo
sophical dimension I would like to introduce political considerations,
something I believe is essential to an issue like this, which is not a
subject on the history of thought or even on the history of institu
tions. We are dealing with a transition that has nothing epoch-mak
ing about it; it is strongly bound up with economic issues, yet it
indicates, or can indicate, a shift in what used to be ca lled zones
of influence in international politics.
Europe today can play a strategic role in the political interpreta
tion of that phenomenon, above all economico-financial, which is
the phase in which capitalist globalization presently finds itself.
This is why we have to devote careful thought to Europe. At the same
time we have to shift the axis of reasoning and intervention, the logic
of the things to be thought and the practice of the things to be done.
One is prompted to say, using a cliche, that Europe is too serious
to be left to Europe's present wretched political classes. We need to
reflect again on the idea of Europe. But who is responsible for the
decision to make Europe ?
This is the point of greatest difficulty. The proj ect of political

1 77

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Europe lies within a process of general depoliticization. It is difficult

to propose to build a political community while we are living through
and exercised by a crisis i n politics. The great makers of Europe Konrad Adenauer, Robert Schuman, Alcide De Gasperi - raised the
problem when, after emerging from the worldwide civil wars, there
was in action a process of bottom-up reappropriation of politics and
a movement to denationalize the masses. This was the magic post
war period, so different from that after the First World War, in fact its
opposite. It didn't last long. Soon economic reconstruction imposed
a phase of political restoration.
The construction of Europe, in a capitalist direction, has proceed
ed paradoxica lly through the phases of a vulgar historical material
ism. First came the economic structure, followed some time later
by a political superstructure. It started with coal and steel and then
gradually and very slowly moved towards community as a free mar
ket area, with a unification of financial power and constraints on eco
nomic policies. Arrangements were made between Commissions and
Councils, meaning between commissioners and ministers, often at
loggerheads. When the citizens arrived, they were told: now adopt a
single currency and we'll see about the rest. And now that goods are
circulating freely and there's a common currency, there can also be
free circulation of people. Meanwhile, the true supranational politi
cal institutions have never been created. European elections, it has
been said, are no more than mid-term elections to verify the political
balance of power within the member countries.
The European Parliament is quicker to disappear from our sight
than to install itself in its seats. True, the European Union has taken
its form of bureaucracy - but not the practice of government - from
the nation states. At the same time there has been a renationalization
of the masses, no longer in totalitarian fashion but democratically
whi le, simultaneously, the nation-state is in crisis. There is a new division between governors and governed: the former are compelled to
be more Europeanized, the latter are called on to be more j ingoistic.
Besides, what is the enlargement of the EU but an aggregation of new
small homelands ?
This is not a Eurosceptical discourse. If anything it is
Europessimistic. And the pessimism is not actually about Europe.
If anything it is about the Europeans. The pro-European rhetoric of
heads of state and of government covers a void of political will. And
the indifference of Europe towards what were once called ''ordinary
men and women'' conceals not a void but a solid of quite different

1 78

concerns. Is there a European people ? Where ? And can we make the

Constitution - as has been suggested - without a people? The j urists
have rightly discussed sovereignty at great length. Politician should
discuss who is sovereign. In reality, we need to return to the original
. alternative of political modernity: shall we choose the Leviathanic
power of Hobbes or the symbio.tic association of Althusius? In the
modern world it was the former model that prevailed and gave birth
to the form of the state. If the latter had prevailed, then perha.ps the
European form would have prevailed. After the civil wars of religion
in the seventeenth century, the English defeated the D utch.
After the civil wars of politics in the twentieth century, the
Americans defeated the Europeans. We cannot create Europe unless
we make a comeback from this defeat. And then there is this fact,
which is both definite and hostile: the birth of a nation and its con
temporary growth into a state has always gone against someone, a
universalistic institution, whether Church or Empire, a neighbouring
country advancing territorial claims, a superimposed power from
which to win independence, an ancient regime with its separate
estates. The Europe of today has to shake off the Atlantic hegemony.
Since Churchill's speech at Fulton, when the iron curtain descended
on Europe, none of us Europeans have ever had an independent
political history. The age of the Atlantic Pact was a period of hiberna
tion for the project of European political unity. Sacrificed to its func
tion as a Western outpost, not even anti-communist, but more crude
ly anti-Bolshevik, we were no more than a province of the empire.
No provincial figure has ever attained a form of political power. The
failure of the construction of socialism involves a different discourse,
but the geopolitical end of the Soviet Union and its military bloc is
precisely relevant to this argument that we are developing. Because
it is precisely since that fall that the idea of Europe has been revived,
that is to say a political Europe has become truly, h istorically possi
ble. Only, a political Europe can no longer be an Atlantic Europe.
After 9 I r r , the decree ''we are all Americans'' again blocked this
incipient process. Bush's war seemed for a moment to relaunch it. But
entrusting ourselves to these small contingencies does not make for
big history. The strategic project of a shift in the political space has to
be made part of the foundations of a constitution of Europe. The act
of constitutionalization is always the concl usion of a movement of
forces driven by subj ects. It is decisive provided the political subj ect
is made of historical stuff. The subjectivity of the working-class
movement in the twentieth century has been expressed in other places

1 79

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Europeans!

1 80

and in different phases. But that was the only force with an inteFna-'
tionalist vocation. It opposed the opening of the age of wars. And
partly for this reason it was overwhelmed in the West after the First
World War, but victorious in Eastern Europe. Then i t becqme difficult
to talk about Europe in the midst of the European civil wars.
The working-class movement after the Second World War suffered from the tragic division. of Europe into two hostile camps. Its
internationalism was the first victim of the Cold War: it was reborn
from below in the anti-imperialist struggles, but Europe remained
divided between East and West. The end of the opposed blocs does
not seem to have led to a major repositioning. Witp a serious Social
Democratic Party, Germany was able to become the locus of a new
stage of the experiment, a reunification not only of states, but of
movements of struggle and organization. The European left should
have started again from this. Today it is too weak as a political
subject to cope with the force of the structural processes orientating
European unity. Despite a so-cal led Party of European Socialists,
the political left-wing groups are still very national, certainly more
national than their respective capitalisms. The only elite that could
have founded a European people, by internationalizing the labour
forces on the basis of capitalistic globalization, was the left that was
the heir to the working-class movement.
The drama is that there is no pol itical Europe, either constituted
or constituent, capable of exercising cultural hegemony amid the
present balances/imbalances of world capitalism. The fanfare that
has accompanied the signing of the Constitutional Treaty has not
given the drama a happy ending. The reasons for Europe's absence
from the world are the same reasons for the a bsence of the left from
Europe. The left is speechless because it is thoughtless: this is the
problem.
We need to be careful. It's not j ust politicians who wax rhetorica l
a bout Europe; intel lectuals have a rhetoric of their own. This is the
thesis, peculiar to the '' politically correct'' , that Europe is a continent
whose distinctive trait is to be a mosaic of differences. This is a banal
idea. On this terrain, Europe seems unable to compete with the
American melting pot. This vocation for openness to others does not
exactly seem to be confirmed by our h istory, either recent or remote.
In addition, other cultures today have so many faces, some reassuring
and others terrifying, that at the very least we need to make distinc
tions. And the land of mediation, between north and south as social
worlds and between west and east as cultural traditions, might well
,

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1 82

function as a project: but only on one condition, if the constitution-

alization of European political unity finds the space-time for neW
decision-making.
.
In that case we could, instrumentlly, evoke a good rhetoric, that
of the ancients. Philosophical in spirit, it would enable us to maintain
that Europe is a category of the spirit. There is a modern European
spirit that has to be wrenched away from its tragic history, a bove all
that of the twentieth cent11ry. It is Kultur, as a continental product,
born and grown not in the conflic):, but in the rivalry with civiliza
tion, with its Anglo-Saxon hallmark. Culture-civilization confronting
progress-civilization: the two faces of modernity. Tt> reduce the
former to the later would be the . end of Europe. We are not required
to reduce the latter to the former, but we need to separate them with
the j ust action of political decision-making and to pit them against
each other in a civil struggle for hegemony. What is at stake is the
governance of Technic, the great outstanding unresolved problem
that we have inherited from the twentieth century: technics, certainly,
as technology, but also as economics, as finance, as communications
and . . . as war. Perhaps we have failed to realize, and only from the
horizon of Kultur-Europe can we realize, that war has become the
continuation of technology. There is almost nothing political about it
any more. Terror descends from above and rises from below, driven
by the same independent instrumentation of means j ustifying the end.
In this, Kultur i s Ver(assung, not simply Konstitution . It gives a
political form to people and therefore founds a people. It is not j ust a
written charter of principles and rules. It is an idea becoming history
and history becoming an idea. It is to be hoped that the anniversary
of the Treaty of Rome will not be understood as the conclusion of
a process, but as the beginning of an experiment. Let's carry out the
popular ratification in the various countries in such as way that it
becomes the opportunity for a collective discourse and awareness of
the event in terms of ''we are all Europeans'' . And i n the meantime
''thinking Europe'' has to be treated as an urgent task of militant
political culture. If it still exists.
.

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Pier Vittorio A ureli

To remain neutral is a bad attitude: you will b e disdained b y

the winners and hated by the losers. Nicolo Machiavelli, 1 5 1 3

From the early collective struggle to establish a project for such a

complex, problematic and crucial city as Brussels, it was clear to us
that the post-modern architectural and urban planning mental habits
concerning the city and its representation were n o longer an effective
way to challenge Brussels' current critical verisimilitude. Within the
framework of Brussels, Capital of Europe, intended as a problem and
as an urban paradigm, the current critical verisimilitude of this city
- its current cultural, social, and political evidence - is constituted by
its inexorable fragmentation, its irreducible political complexity, its
grandeur of vacancy, its resistance to the presence of institutions, and
by its fluctuating stasis of urban imagination. For us, to establish a
proj ect in Brussels was to proactively challenge this critical status quo
by disentangling the cultural and ideological complex constituted by
Europe, the EU and the C ity of Brussels. The manifesto presented in
this book is an act of militant political culture in favour of the idea
of Europe. '' Idea of Europe'' here means that Europe is not j ust a ter
ritory, as it is often mapped by architects and geographers in recent
books and exhibitions, nor an integration of nation-states as it is
1

Roland Barthes defined ''critical verisimil itude'' as that which is not expressed in the declarations
of principle and that moves within ''a certain aesthetics of the public''. ''Consisting in what appears
obvious,'' wrote Barthes, ''the verisimilar critique remains detached from any method in particular
because, on the contrary, method is the act of doubt with which we interrogate ourselves on events
or on nature . . . the verisimilar critic prefers evidence.'' From: Roland Barthes, Critica e Verita
(Turin, 1 9 6 9 l 2002 ] ) , r 9 ( author's translation).

1 85

represented by national-based politics, nor a pure economic opportu

nity as it is at the moment represented by the institutions of the EU,
nor simply a mosaic of differences as it is often represented by
intellectual rhetoric. '' Idea of Europe'' here means that Europe is a
political project born and grown as an attempt to civilize the political
conflicts that have made the European territory the crossover space
between radically different positions and ideologies. It is exactly the
awareness of this historical identity of Europe that 'has motivated
'' European thinkers'' such as Johannes Althusius and Altiero Spinelli
to search for a supranational ''Federal '' European horizon, opposed
to the pattern of nation-states, and today we would say by updating
their position, opposed to the '' regions '' - the new feudal network in
the age of globalization. As architects engaged with the city, instead
of pursuing the '' Idea of Europe'' as a purely geopolitical vision, we
have chosen to work on the city itself as a potential test of this idea.
The subject of this operation is urbanity itself, seen in its phenomeno
logical trace of our being within the city through the immediate
experience of its form.
The principle of this project is nothing more than a composition
and transfiguration of fragments found, collected and chosen accord
ing to a vision that sees the source of a project about European repre
sentation in the forms of city and in the composition of its intelligi ble
manifestation: architecture.
Brussels - Europe - EU
'' Constitutionalism '' versus '' Functionalism''
Lately, in the media, there is a tendency to easily overlap the idea of
Europe with the reality of the European Union ( not to mention the
tragic gesture of rhetorically overlapping the idea of the European
Union with the name of its currency) . In this situation, the idea of
the European Union is seen either as an ''orgasmic inevita bility'' , in
the words of Rem Koolhaas, or as a political pathology of our post
national era. Missing in these scenarios is the idea of the European
Union as a project or vision; a theory born at a very specific historical
time in response to the dilemma of how to shape a form of govern
ance that would be simultaneously critical of the principle of com
plete unanimity among its components and form a supranational
entity based on the acknowledgment of the difference and specificity
among these components. This dilemma is embodied in the project
of Federalism, a project that, in turn, consciously or unconsciously,

1 86

(:

. . . mirrors the ancestral geopolitical pattern of Europe itself: a place

in constant struggle, if not crisis, between the necessary distinction
of parts (think of the Greek archipelago) , and the reduction to one
(think of the R oman Empire ). Within the contemporary geopolitical
scene, the conception of the European Union is nothing more than a
political conj ecture that eches - though very weakly -::- this ancient
dilemma.
This conj ecture has been promoted by two different methodolo
gies: the so-called functionalist method of Jean Monnet - a step-by
step political construction based mainly on ad hoc economic policies
- and the so-called constitutionalist method inspird by Altiero
Spinelli - the aspiration to a Federal Union that puts the question
of institutions, their form, task and place as its primary ''constituent
fact'' . The silent history of the making of the European Union
evolved by implementing the realpolitik of the first and postponing
the urgency of the second, resulting in a conspicuous economic infra
structure whose image is ironically reminiscent of the hypertrophic
bureaucracy of the Soviet Union. However, unlike the latter, the
EU project seems wrapped in the cultural cliche of post-ideological
politica l correctness. Indeed, it can be argued that even the '' style''
through which European institutions are placed and represented
today in Brussels unconsciously reveals this ideological laissez faire,
clearly manifested by the corporate look of the EU office enclaves
and lobby-space sprawl within the city centre. From the point of view
of cultural and ideological affection, the EU federa list proj ect is too
much a victim of its narcissism of good intentions, a narcissism that
covers a dramatic deficit of political imagination. Beyond the assess
ment of generic forms of public governance, the European federal
project is undergoing a crisis of representation. The origin is embed
ded within the lack of representation of its institutions as real spaces
and accessible forms in the realm of concrete singular experiences.
Challenging the contemporary disbelief in the effectiveness of
representation, institutions and, most of all, the capability of urban
conjectures to give form to these institutions, we chose the task of
addressing the question of Brussels as Capital City as a gesture that in
itself expresses something that goes far beyond Brussels and the E U :
something that regards the idea of Europe today and its intelligibility
in one p lace beyond the institutional non-places of post-modern
politics. In order to make such a choice - that is not j ustifia ble within
the functionalist liberalist agenda of current EU politics - we endeav
our to build up momentum in the form of a project for the city; one

1 87

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that links the existing struggle of Brussels as a city in its own terms to
the constitutional aspirations of a supranational entity clearly. identi
fiable also as an institutional and real place. We don't pretend to
make any naive translation of political constitution into a '' political
architecture''; we mean to emphasize the necessity of a proactive engagement through the urban .p roject. Instead of attempting to record
all possible complexities and contradictions within the city, a proac
tive attitude takes the risk to project a conjecture, not merely as a so
lution of a matter of facts, but rather as a disputable and sharp object
that involves people's concerns.

I .

After the Vacant City

The target is to build a specific analogue of the idea of Europe, politi
cally represented by the EU and, de facto, represented by the recogniz
able characters of its urbanity that can match the real problems
of a city that, more than other cities in Europe, already represents the
current European situation. Indeed, Brussels' long history of separa
tion, fragmentation, speculative exploitation, resistance and multi
ethnicity can be seen as a miniature of the European territory and its
internal struggles. For this reason, a project for Brussels can also be
perceived as a project for Europe; a project which, instead of being
j ust an abstract framework of policies or simply an image, could
finally point towards becoming a city in its original sense: a centre,
the capital .
The history of capital cities in Europe is not j ust a history of
national capitals, but also a history of cultural capitals. Cultural
capita ls can also coincide with the centres of changing geopolitical
entities, but by their own institutional nature are able to merge the
discontinuity of their political role with the continuity of their
cultural charisma. In order to perform such a role, cultural capitals
need an ela borate display of metropolitan emblems that exceed what
ordinary, everyday life is able to offer. At the same time, these metro
politan emblems should be defined and fine tuned to the problematic
questions of the city. Paradoxically enough, in order to become a
convincing capital city, what Brussels lacks most in its centre is pre
cisely the element of the ''everyday'' in its quintessential manifesta
tion: housing. This specific problem of Brussels is a providential ques
tion for such an ambition to establish a constitutional proj ect for the
capital city of the twenty-first century, because it forces one to rethink
the role of representation of executive powers. These can no longer

1 89

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be seen as autonomous hubs, detached from the city, but as the . '
city itself. This particular situation helped us to refuse both the now
fashionable indifference towards the positioning of institllions with
in the fabric of the city and the recent obsession with security that
promotes the isolation and suburbanization of political institutions .
The aim of the project is to br.i ng back ''emblematic ns.titutions''
such as political seats, housing sections, educational poles and infra
structural hubs in close and orchestrated proximity with the centre
of the city. Within this proposition, the first move of the project was
the search for the dimension of the centre that would be neither the
actual historical Pentagon nor the Brussels Urban Ilegion, but rather
the still-unrecognized scale of the city that emerges by the selection
and composition of the many vacant sites that today characterize the
civic fabric of Brussels. It might be charming and, eventually, politi
cally correct to romanticize the image of Brussels as ''vacant city''
or terrain vague, however, the proj ect attempts to transform the en
tropic nature of the vacant sites into urban artefacts: recognizable ur
ban parts that through the architectural scale are intelligible as new
metropolitan city sections. To establish such an approach means to
question and defy one of the most popular formats of architectural
contribution to the contemporary city: the landmark.

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Beyond the Landmark:

Urban Form and Representation

Both the urban artefact and the landmark share the property of being
conceived through the architectural scale. But if the landmark reduc
es architecture to a monolithic shape that marks its representation
only through a skyline spectacle, the urban artefact is a concentrated
section in which representation is produced by the experience of the
section itself. Unlike the landmark, the urban artefact identifies itself
with the attributes of the normal city, and helps the city to avoid a
frustrating open-ended j uxtaposition of individual accidents. Urban
artefacts help the city establish the frame within which its emblems
can occur i n such a way that the city itself remains at the centre and
not at the periphery of the frame. For tl1is reason, urban artefacts
should aim to conquer and sustainably maintain the possibility for
large-scale interventions within the city without useless utopian
megastructural enthusiasm or gigantic gestures of architectural par
/ante. Urban artefacts should provide conditional opportunities for
development so that this impetus is not legi ble merely as an image-

191

making opportunity but also as a civic contribution to the real

eperience of the city. In this respect, the legibility of the Capital City
Project is invested in the clear confrontation-relationship between
the institutions and the city. The project articulates this confrontation
in very architectural q uestions: how to enter a building; what kind of
form or space is proposed for the building; and how that particular
form or space provides the appropriate stage for the active engage
ment with the institution.
It follows then, that the fra me of Brussels as Capital of Europe
- seen as a constituent project parallel to the ongoing struggle of the
EU and analogous to the forms and archetypes of European urbanity
- becomes the passionate utterance through which we engage with
Brussels' problems and possibilities at once, in a single, defined
project. A crucial decision was made to give to an architectural reso
lution to the project in order to go beyond the all-embracing rhetoric
of diagrams and '' network '' . On one hand, we believe that the finite
character of the project is the only guarantee of its productive and
open-ended future, unfolding in discussions and debates. On the oth
er, this choice was also taken as a general response toward the current
disciplinary disbelief in architecture and especially towards its main
specific manifestation: form.

Form as action
In the last decades, the idea of form has been removed from the
realms of architecture and urbanism. Due to the massive changes that
took place within the contemporary urban condition, the traditional
tasks of these disciplines (to give form to the city) were considered in
adequate tools with which to meet emerging pressures and seemingly
insoluble new complexities. As a result, sub-disciplinary fields of re
search and application were promoted, such as programming, brand
ing, mapping, marketing (and research itself) and were thought to be
successful and operative alternatives. The instrumentality of form in
the construction of the contemporary city was not only seen as out
dated, even more than the presumably ineffective relevance of form,
the idea itself of mak ing the city became a moral non sequitor: since
the city was conceived as evolving from uncontrollable and unintel
ligible social and economic forces, architects were forced to consider
it as an unknown entity - a mere nature - representable only through
simulacra of reality-as-found and those of an ever-growing accumu
lation of complexities and contradictions. These twin dynamic condi-

1 92

--

tions were deemed as the prerequisite (and only) resources from

which to learn.

On one hand, within this theoretical scenario where the .city is

seen as a boundless, sprawling and self-organizing organism in a
. seemingly biological state of flux that is devoid of any intelligible po
litical intention or other objective purpose, the culture of architecture
seems to retreat into a fetishist celebration qf its value as '' shape''
and '' identity '' , or tends to fuse with concepts and operative .scales
that are often no longer representable from within its immanent
material vocabulary. We can assert therefore, that bt;tween floating
shapes and global flows it is difficult to find a theoretical legitimiza
tion for our knowledge as architects. On the other hand, the city as
an intelligible point of gravity for the human needs of sociality and
representation - as centre - the city as rea l, tangible and dense form is
ever-present and sti ll constitutes a crucial demand of research for ar
chitects. Despite the sophistication developed by the dominant new
network of global authority and governance - a sophistication based
on transnational regimes of trade and mobility - even researchers in
the social sciences maintain that the contemporary city cannot simply
be considered as an accidental field of economic forces, but still re
quires a specific form; a form that can enhance its sustainability not
only as a place to live but also as a means of centrality - in the service
of cultural and political representation.
Recent geopolitical events, as demonstrated by current studies on
urbanization, seem to be investing once again in the idea of centrality
as an indispensable form of social and cultural identification, a form
that cannot easily be replaced by any other organizing or infrastruc
tura l system, political or economic framework - not even by the
omnipresent scale of globalization and the correspondingly popular
notion of the city-as-region. Notwithstanding that, and regardless
of whether the pervasive nature of the global economy can or cannot
be avoided, we are entering a cultural phase in which the exultant
optimism toward the mythologies of globalism, genericity and the
free market as the end of city history is rapidly dwindling. Within this
vacuum of paradigms, a vacuum that at the moment is dominated
by misplaced ''political wanderings'' and a fear of proposing new
models, the city must be rediscovered as a strongly identifiable place,

Tl1e culture of sprawl has defined two opposite scenarios: on one l1and the space-endlessness of tl1e
new global-regional dimension of the city, and on the other tl1e irreducible itemization produced by the
attention to the domestic microdimension. One can see this concordia oppositoritt11 in the success of
disciplines such as geography and interior design.

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1 94

a crucial la boratory of urban consciousness and, above all, as a :

constructible and i ntell igible physical form.
Even the infl uential culture of urban geography that until recently
overlooked the threat of a post-metropolitan landscape seems to be
slowly moving away from the rhetoric of globalization and regionalization in their most radical form. A rhetoric that is purely concerned
with the immateriality of global flows and the smoothness of networks as the main vectors of urbanization is giving way to specula
tions about the splintering forces of our contemporary urban world
which, albeit indirectly, highl ight the strategic relevance and the
specificity of the city as central urban artefact with evr growing
explicitness. An artefact intended as the available representation of
. the city itself and as the tangible and immediate p henomenological
ground by way of which the urban condition perseveres. Within this
scenario, the theory and practice of urban design - the combination
of architecture and urbanism as a composite discipline that is con
cerned directly with the form of the city - can acquire a new rele
vance both in its effective material organization and as the pertinent
scale of speculation about an alternative idea of the city.

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or the Problem of Dimension

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The project presented in this book has concentrated on the idea of

the city as the form of cultural and political centrality and maintained
that its urban architectu ral features are the main contri bution to its
manifestation; this means that the knowledge accu mulated is within
the province of urban design . Urban design is the field within our dis
cipline that currently reflects the highest level of crisis, while simulta
neously showing signs of unrea lized potential. Formally established
in r 9 5 6 at Harvard University as a reaction to technocratic p lanning
and sprawl, the term '' urban design'' was coined by J ose Lluis Sert
and marked the formation of a new d isciplinary field engaged in
the process of defin ing the form and the spatial qua lity of the city.
While we may need to adopt different attitudes today, between the
1 9 5 0s and the 1 9 70s, the field of urban design was the arena for the
confrontation of conflicting ideologies over the idea of the city, from
Team r o to Tendenza, from Oswald Mathias Ungers' researches on
Berlin, to OMA's rediscovery of the metropolis. Despite its more radi
cal beginnings, today the practice of urban design has been largely
relegated to commercial or anachronistic approaches. Invariably

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1 96

these are based on prescriptive design guidelines reflected in th u s

by the conservative agenda of the Congress for the New Urbanism:
traditionalist practices that fail to progressively address the contem'
porary condition of the urban territory.
The question that our proj ect for Brussels raises is w4ether it is
possible to reconstruct a contemporary agenda for '' urpan design''
as a productive and advanced discipline, one that can clearly and
intel ligibly represent in form our cu ltural and political realities. This
means that we have to define a specific and tangible field of operation
in which architecture can be more than a form of urban decor, float
ing upon the multiplicity of forces that are shaping'the contemporary
metropolis.
This question in turn raises the issue of the dimension of the
urban project. Dimension is directly and proportionately related to
the measure of relevance of the design intervention; it determines the
degree to which this can act upon its context, to which extent it can
be a factor of change within the city. It is the concrete (and critically
loca lized ) instrument in a situation where it is clear that the scale
of design cannot include the entirety of the urbanized territory. The
intervention's relevance is not measured by means of its '' bigness ''
alone.3 The term dimension is not intended only as a physical meas
urement and thus does not indicate scale relations. The term instead
regards the syntactical application of a concrete and active knowledge, of the potential, limits and instrumentality inherent in the econ
omy of architectural thinking; the specific range within the powerful
economy that lies in the reformative relationship between the ab
straction of an idea and the concreteness of the discipline itself as
material organization - between the theoretical position and its physical materialization; in other words, tl1e exercise of the discipline's
knowledge. A problem has an architectural dimension when it is
understandable and workable strictly with the means and too ls of
our vocabulary as architects.
D imension can be interpreted as both a concrete category of
urban design and as a measure of conceptual economy, a necessary
parameter for the architectural evaluation of the city. If the concept
of dimension is not an abstract notion, but places its origin in a nexus

We can affirn1 tl1at Rem Koolhaas's ''Bigness'' , Aldo Rossi's ''Urban Fact'', Robert Venturi's ''Strip'',
Kenneth Frampton's \'Megaform'' and Oswald Mathias Ungers' '\Grossfortn'' are concepts related
to the problem of the design intervention and its dimensions (l iteral a11d phenomenologica l) witl1in
the condition of the contemporary city. In spite of tl1eir different positions, tl1ese 11orions share tl1e
awareness of urban design as tl1e prime contributor to the form of the cit}.

1 97

The space of appearance (Celebration at the Seagram Plaza, A l ice Wood, New Yo rk 1 972)
1 98

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of concrete facts, it follows that the urban project must be a crui ble
within which its original datum - the form of the city - is borne out.
Mea nwhile, the aware11ess of dime11sion for the urban intervention is
not lim ited to techn ical questions. Starting from within the Cliscipline
itself (the immanence of the urban project) it inevita bly ql.lestions
society, politics and power on the level of their material organization,
whi le at the same time being at the service of these practices - a crucial paradox to be understood critically. Ultimately, the idea of di
mension implies a commitment to .the proj ect as an instrument of for
mal and material responsibility, meaning a departure - and a move
forward - from the laissez faire rhetoric of flexibilitf, indeterminacy,
na rrative, programming, content, hybridity and immateria lity.4

Dimension o f Capital Cities

Duri11g the general process of economic restructuring in the r 9 7os
and '8 0s and the fu ll affirmation of the global market in the ' 9 0s,
11ational sovereignty fel l into crisis. This process emphasized the role
of what Saskia Sassen ca lls new '' World Cities '' and questioned the
relevance of '' Capita l Cities '' as both real ''centres'' and geopolitical
sym bolic form. More recently, however, the problematic sca le of po
litical complexity implied in new geographica l frames such as regions
and transnational cooperation, has created a cultural condition in
which the meaning of '' strongly identified places'' is again critical
and urgent. Within this context the idea of ce11trality is becoming
more and more important, not only as a gravitational point for the
economic system, but a lso as an institutional and sym bolic fulcrum
in the apparent space-endlessness of the contemporary city.
The recent debates about Brussels as Capital of Europe have dra
matically highlighted the relevance of city form as an urgent question
within our globalized world, while at the same time it has revealed
the tragic incompetence of architects and planners to provide a tech
nically pertinent response to this question. Within this framework,
the future of Brussels seems to be one of the most urgent questions to
be answered. The scale of the city is modest if compa red with other
metropolitan centres in the world, but its geopolitical relevance
makes it one of the most significant. Brussels is simultaneously a
4

Here is the idea of the project's concreteness as its ''logical construction'', ince re ea rch and design
tl1eory are 11ow victim of an intolerable mi Lt e of narrative and merapl1ors. Instead of investing in tl1e
unrelial1le and ofte11 demagogic abstraction of the ''1nise e1z Sl-ene'', the urban project mLtst redi cover
its niaterial im1nanence if it is to constitute itself as the real a11d tangible ''metapl1or of change''.

1 99

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state itself, part of tl1e Flemish Diamond ( the most densely urbanized
region in the world togetl1er with the Randstad and the Ruhrgebiet) ,
the capital of Belgi um, one of the cities that define tl1e Centra l Ca pital
City Area ( together with Amsterdam a nd Cologne) and, above all,
the capital of Europe. Its role as capital simultaneously defines
Brussels on a global scale a nd at the scale of its form .. This seems to
particularly address the dramatic incongruence between 'the future
role of the city, its politica l intelligence, and its consistency as a repre
sentational form. Brussels is in diamatic need of a new vision that can
overcome the outrageous medi ocrity of its recent European urban
devel opment and at the same time resolve th imrr1inent expectation
of Brussels to _pe1for1n as the permanent site for the idea of the
E uropean Union to be shown, at once and in one p lace.

Rep1esentati on
How to give form to a l l of thi s ? How to represent this form within
the necessarily reductive nature of an architectural project and, above
all, how to construct a form of representation that is a-iconic and yet
fully expressive in its own abstract terms?
To answer this q uestion, we have chosen to investigate the nature
of urban artefacts as l imited form-objects that, before being images,
are formal and spatial experiences expressed in terms of the composi
tion and configuration of form. The representation of this experience
is directly expressed in the artefact itself, in its compositional nature
which is not determined by any matter of fact algoritl1mically extrud
ed from the research, but deliberately based on the research's matters
of concern . These matters of concern a re related to our selective
interpretation of Eu ropean urbanity as a thing in itself and as a
phenomenological analogue of u11ited discreteness that the idea of
Federalism entails. Beyond a political scenario, this is an idea of an
entity as an object in itself and yet bot1nd as part of an intelligible
whole. Therefore, the language of the project refers to this idea not
through an iconographic m imesis, but through a common, passion
ate utterance of its features in the form of elements, including the
infrastructural organization of the new centrality, the reasoned
disposition of the projects across this centrality, the definition of the
priorities of programmes that by their orchestrated location a re able
to enact a sense to the metropolitan experience ( knowledge, hous
ing), the configuration of the buildings themselves according to the
recognition of common urban principles (flatness, low-rise density,

201

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The European Parl ia rnent
The Canal Qu arter
Carrefour de l ' E urope
The E u ropean U n i versity Centre
M u ndaneum
Josaphat Qua rter
Bockstael Housing Pole
The Gate

Bru sse ls-Europe: a composition of artefacts

202

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arcl1i tectural monuments as frames rather than as totems ) . Then

what kind of comm unication can this archi tect u1e perform ? How
can a radica l ly a bstract archi tectu re manifest i tsel f as a pas.s ionate
utterance of a series of cho ices that do not pretend to be spectat1 lar,
but that aspire to activate a certain consciousness, certa i n cogn ition
of how things are com posed together ? Perhaps the best nswer to this
question - an answer that emerged from the way we have attempted
to express our p1oactivity towards the idea and the necessity of
European Union momentum through the means of urban fo1m .a nd
architecture - is the analogy that art liistori an Michael Fried5 has ar
gued i n order to explain the kind of express ivity of a bstjact sculpture:
.

I want to suggest that our situation, o r predicament, i s roughl y anal

ogo us to that of a sma l l child at most on the verge of speech, i n the
company of adults conversi ng among themselves. It i s often clear
enough, in such circumstances, that the cl1 i l d grasps something of
what is going on around it. Here the question ari ses: to what does the
child respond, i f he is sti l l ignorant of the meaning of the individual
words ? And the answer mt1 st be, to the abstract con.figt1 rations i n
time made by the spoken words as they a re j o ined to one another,
and to the gestures, both of voice and body, that accompany, o r
better still, inhabit them. To the child the language he hears spoken
around h i m is both a bstract and gestura l : here is the crux and the
h igh -water mark of ot1r analogy. Whatever eloquence, whatever ca
pacity to move 01 to excite him, or merely to command 11is attention,
the language may posses resides solely i n its cha racter as configura
tion and composition.

5
M ichael Fried, A 1t and Objectl1ood: Essays a11d Reviews
(Ch igago: Tl1e U11iversity of Cl1 icago Press, i 9 9 8 ) .

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Gery Leloutre and Iwan Stra uven

Fo1 centuries, Brussels l1as been consumed by the intoxicating dream

of growing into an i n ternational metropol i s . A n a mbition that drives
the development of the city to this day. It has transformed, disfigured
and refolded the urban l andscape. Yet when the ultimate opportunity
presented itse l f - Brussels, Cap ita l of Euro pe ! - Brussels seemed to
rej ect it out of hand. Brussels is a bit like a body conv u l sed by hysteria:
the satisfaction of i ts desires is compu l sivel y postponed, the dream is
stubbornl y pushed forward as an end in itsel f.
A lt l1ough Brussels has not managed to provide a n appropriate
countenance to the accommodation of European institutions, its inter
national a mbitions h a ve left significant traces in the b u i lt environ
ment. O b l ivious to a l l known urban paradigms, Brusse ls has gradua l l y
developed into an immense coll age, a j uxtaposition of conflicting im
ages, scales and architecture idioms. A n exciting spectacl e of contrasts
and paradoxes. Yet in spite of this chaotic aspect, Brussel s remains a
highly decipherable urban l a 11 dscape: a collage of fragments of grandiose, visionary proj ects that fol lowed one another in rapid succession
and the radical nature of which aroused fiercely antagonistic reactions
every time. I n Brussels, more than a nywhere else, the dialectic s ucces
sion o f architectural visions 11as been expressed i n the built form in
this way. Over the years the city has grown i nto a theatre of archtec
tural and urban paradigms.
This urban spectacle is the outcome of a battle between European
urban idea l s that prin1arily took p l ace in the secon d h a l f of the twenti
eth century. From that point on, the am bition to g .r ow into a m odern
metropolis, expressed, among other things, in the monumental con
struction a long the route of the no rth-south _rai lway l i n k completed
in r 9 5 2, was increasingly l i n ked to the European drea m. A series of
modernization projects - from traffic infrastructure works and urban
design plans to l a rge-scale build i ng proj ects - were j ustified by the
g1and Eu ropean proj ect for Brussels, which could never be too expl ic
itly stated, however, for pol i tical reasons.

205

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206

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Crossroads of Eu1ope

The first great post-war project predicated on a European dimension

was the adaptati on of tl1e roadway infrastructu re that began d u 1ing
tl1e run-up to the Expo 5 8 world fa ir and expan ded across. the enti re
urban agglomeration. Brussels, Crossroads of the Occide11t was
the title of the brochure announcing the constructi on of a mu ltitL1 de
of u rban motorways and tunnels. The text made i1 0 bones a bout it:
'' O u r Capital , crossroads of the great traditional routes of the
Occident, wi l l be able to claim a rightfu l position of choice i n tomor
row's united Europe. '' 1 At the same time, at the cen tfe of a country
and of a continent, Brussels had to shoulder the responsi bil ities that
this exceptional location enta iled.
In reality, however, E u rope was nothi ng more than an a l i bi,
a distant perspecti ve to j ustify radical and protracted construction
projects. The construction of the urban motorway network was,
after a l l , the extension of a global territorial project for the Belgian
territory geared toward segregating employment areas from housing
a reas, as wel l as immediately isolating administrative and production
centres from the individual residences built with govern ment subsi
dies. This policy had earlier resulted i 11 the expansion of one of the
densest railway networks i n Europe, a project that had culminated
i n tl1e north-south l in k and centra l station i 11 the Be lgian capita l .
The mega lomaniac p roj ect of the n ortl1-south rai l way l i nk was
quickly du bbed the ''J u nction'' , a metaphor tl1at was, a bove a l l , lad
en with national sym bolism: it assured a l i teral and smootl1 connec
tion between the d i fferent sections of the country, with a central stop
i n the heart of the national capita l . In the post-war period, when tl1 i s
territorial project began to focus on tl1e growing a utomobile traffic,
the metaphor changed . In view of tl1e s ize and the duration of the

1
Omer V<.1 n[ludenl1ove, BrLtxelles, C1rref<)11r (le /'Oc:cide11t, fo11ds des roi1tes ( M in i'>tcre de TrJv<.1 t1'\.
Public et de la Recon tructio11, 1 9 5 6 ) , 9 5 .
.,

The gc>''cr11n1e11t's policies 011 acces to l101ne <)wner l1 i p a l lc)\Vcd for tl1e acqui ition of si11gle-fe:1 111 i l )1
hon1es by gran ti11g premium to candida re L1t1 i lder . Put i11 place in 1 9 22 wi tl1 the brief experin1ent of
rl1e Moyer oen Act, but LI pended i11 r 9 24 due to the econo111ic cri i , the sy ten1 tc)ok <)11 a genLtine
scope \virl1 rl1e r 94 8 adoptio11 of tl1e legi la ti on pro po ed b rl1c C,1 rl1ol ic mini rer A I fred De T1 )'e.
U11der rl1e e 111ea ure , linked re> the stin1ulared den1ocratizatio11 of tran port (st1l)sidized ra ilway ticket
Lrbscriptions and develc> p111e11t of the road 11et\vork), tl1e con trt1ctio11 of private dwc l l i11gs in rl1e
peri pl1cry, i 11i tia 11)' reserved for rl1e tipper middle cl<.1 s, progre si vel y extended to every stra tu111 c>f tl1e
popt1 lati<)11. ee Guy Bt.1ete11, A11d re Spi tl1ove11 c1nd Loui Albrecl1tc;, Mobiliteit, lt.111dscl1c1p va11 111acJ;t
e11 or1111ac/Jt ( Le u ven/Amer foort: Acco, 2000, fl rsr edition 1 9 9 7 ) .
3

See for i11 tar1ce Jacque Aron Le tot1r11a11t de f'L1rb,111is111e b111xel/cJis, r 95 8 - 1 9 -8

( Brussel : Fond. josepl1 _Jacq t1emotte, 1 97 8 ) .

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planned infrastructure works, along with their economic and social

impact, the European dimension was the only way for the project to
find its way into the col lective imagination. And so emerged ,,the con
cept of Brussels, crossroads of Europe, nucleus of a future network of
motorways that would stretch across the entire European continent,
from London to Istanbul, from Berlin to Madrid . 4 Hand in hand
with Expo 5 8 , Europe ushered the Belgian capital into a new era of
modernity and progress.
.
The same metaphor - Brussels, crossroads of Europe - is also
inherent in the first concrete urban planning proj ect 9 f the post-war
period to make a renewed attempt at approaching the scale of Victor
Besme's nineteenth-century tra nsformations of Brussels.s In the
preliminary design for the Groupe Alpha's redistricting plan ( 1 9 6 2 I 970 ) , 6 the redistribution of automobile traffic formed the basis for a
global reorganization of the urban structure, with the aim of concen
trating employment in the city centre. True to Buchanan's modernist
formula, the main traffic arteries divided the territory into autono
mous neighbourhood units. Building roadways was seen as the
ideal method for what was dubbed the '' renovation of the urban
landscape '' : 7 replacing entire residential neighbourhoods along the
principal axes with ''prestige realization zones'' . 8
4
See A nna/es des Travaux Publics de Belgiqt"-e, r 83 7 - I 9 8 7 I Tijdschrift van Openbare Werken van
Belgie, r 83 7 - 1 9 87, vol. 2, Mini try of Public Works, Brussels, 1 9 8 7, 66.

In r 840, faced with the expansion of Brussels into the territories of varioL1s peripheral municipalities,
the Belgian state created the post of roadways inspector. A veritable organ of guardiansJ1ip over the
111unicipalities, its task was to coordinate tl1e main roadways within and around the capital. Besme
held this post during the reign of Leopold 1 1 and translated the urbanist vision of the monarch by
means of his plan for the expansion and improvement of the Brussels agglomerations, the various
versions of which would continue to serve as a base of negotiations witl1 both private investors and
municipal authorities in creating the monumental Brussels of tl1e n ineteentl1 century that marks the
Ltrban tructure to t11is day.
6
The organic legislation of 1 9 62 provides for a nationwide planning on four levels: national, regional
(more or less per province), by sector and, final ly, m u n icipal urban designs. Only the sector plans,
still in force today, \.Vere ever ela borated. The preliminary study for the sector plan for the Brussels
agg10111eration was entrusted, as was often the case, to a private urban design firm, in this instance the
Groupe Alfa, by the administration, w h ich su bsequently took charge of making it conform to legal
requirements. See, for instance, Pierres et rues, Bruxelles: croissance i1rbaine 1 7 80 - 1 9 80, catalogue
for tl1e exhibition organized by the Societe Generate de Banque tl1e Sint-LL1kas Archives and G. Abeels
( Brussels, I 9 8 2 ) .
7

Tl1e construction of urban motorways traversi11g the existing city was seen as an opportunity to
regenerate neighbourhoods which were considered dilapidated or which '' present[ ed] defective
infrastructures and [were] an obstacle to urban development'' . The roadway thus became a driving
element for urban development, which, beyond transforming the ci ty, also stim ulated the urbanization
of more peripheral zones. The obsolescence criteria for neighbourhood were limited to the state of
built structures and never took socia I consequences into account. In Aron, Le tour11a11t de l'urbanis1ne
bruxellois, op. cit. ( note 3 ) , 8 5 .
8
Evert Lagrou '' La politique d't1rban isatio11 dans le pentagone brL1xellois depuis la fin de la gL1erre'',
in: Pierres et rues, op. cit. ( note 6), 3 2 9 .

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City of Brussels and the Phi lips Tower were l i nked to a traffic exchange for buses and two underground metro l ines
210

In a testament to the a bsol ute faith in tl1e potential of modern .

architecture to give Brussels a new urban countenance, these zones
were intended tQ express pol itical and economic might, and they
l i n ked buildings inextricably witl1 infrastructure. The Government
Adm inistrative Centre that was erected at the point where various
modes of transport intersected is one of tl1e most evocative examples
of this approach, as was the area around the Sch u man rounda bout,
where the Berlaymont Building, the seat of E u ropean executive
power, was built on top of the gigantic anth i l l o f the undergr ound,
with its metro and railway l ines, motorways and car pa1ks.
The Groupe Alpha's p roject was never given tht1 force of law.
The publication of the section on traffic redistri bution in 1 97 3 caused
so m uch commotion that the project was fi led away in the vaults of
the Brussels administ1ation. As a shadow plan, h owever, it did have
a major impact on the actua l development of Brussels. Many neigh
bourl1oods and p laces in Brussels fel l v ictim to speculation, non-oc
cupancy and u rban decay beca use the plan had provided for compul
sory land purchase and the devel opment of an urban moto rway
in these areas, as was the case in p laces l i ke the a rea around the
Maelbeek Va l ley between the European Q uartet and F lagey Square.
What the p lans of Vanaudenhove ( 1 9 5 6) and Alpha ( 1 9 6 2 1 9 70) envisaged for the entire Brussels agglomeration and within a
national context, the Tek hne Plan of 1 9 6 3 attempted to rea lize on a
m unicipal l evel - but on the scal e of a municipality that was not j ust
the capital of Belgi um but had also become ( a s yet unoffici a l l y ) the
capital of Europe: the city of Brussels. Tl1e vision may have been the
same, but the interests and the work arena had changed. Tekhne was
an extremely ambitious plan, for it had to real ize the international
am bitions of Brussels, as wel l as the n1etropol i tan functions of the
entire Brussels region, within the territory of the capital municipal ity.
Like the A lpha Group's plan, tl1e new urban devel opment was graft
ed 011to the organization of tra ffic. I n add ition to a series of parl<ing
faci l ities in the city centre and a system of access roads around the
'' I l ot Sac1e '' ( the maze o f sma l l medieval streets surrounding the
Grand Place ) , the plan p rovided for '' urban renovations'' . In order to
accommodate the antici pated o ffice space and housing that would be
needed, the city had to be thoroughly reorganized and a number of
dilapidated blocks in the city centre had to be demolished. In their
p lace woul d come b u il ding blocks that were vertical l y zoned : a street
level with commercial functions and a p linth of apartments topped
by medium-rise office towers. The administrative centre of the City
,

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212

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of Brussels and the Phi l i ps Tower near the Pl ace de la Monnaie are
two harbingers of tl1is la1ge-scale rezoning of the city centre, which,
incidenta l ly, deviated from. the C IAM-esque compulsion to segregate
and instead championed the mixing of u1ban fu nctions. The a i rn was
to rebu i l d the entire Anspach Avenue up to the northern edge of the
pentagon-shaped central area alo11g these l i nes. Architecture was
once n1ore cal led upon - through its scal e and a typolo g}r adapted
to the infrastructure - to reso l ve the urban problem.
Paradoxical l y enough i t was oqtside the pentagon - the Tek hne
Pla11's planning area - a l beit sti l l within the l i m its of the city of
Brt1ssels, that the vision behind the plan wouJd achitve its most radi
cal real ization. With the idea of developing Brusse ls i nto one of the
most i mportant centres of the new, modern E urope in commerc i a l
terms as we l l , local p o liticians and buildi ng promoters concocted a
p lan to build tl1e European equ ivalent of New Yorl<'s World Trade
Center towers i n Brussels, a l i nk i n a worldwide network of com1nu
n ication and business centres.9 Once again the i nternational vocation
of Brussels was employed to generate an urban transformation using
an arch itectural concept - an elaborate i n frastructure and interna
tional architecture complex. The fate of the North Q ua rter was
sealed. The story of the demol itions that characterized the northern
section of Brussels for years i s wel l -known.

Reconstruction of the E uropean C ity

What many of these grand metropo l i ta n projects had i n common was
that their ambitions confli cted with the many-headed geopol i tical
structure of the Brussels agglomeration, which until 1 9 8 9 , when the
Brussels Capital Region was established, had no offici a l status and
was l i ttle more than an i l l -defined group of municipalities.
The projects with a regional scale encountered resista nce from the
m un icipalities. The others were necessarily l i mi ted to the territory of
a single municipali ty, that of Brussels, the capital of Belgi u m and of
Europe. A mbitions l i tera l l y col l ided with municipal boundaries and
policy makers were forced to undertake drastic demol ition works
i n order to real i ze their dreams .. Beca use of i ts European and i nterna
tional ambitions, the capita l had to mutate constantly.
The harsh reactions that a l l of these projects e licited can be
explained i n part by tl1e fact that resources i n Belgium have never
9
Thierry Demey, Chronique d'une capitale en chantie1, volume 2 ( Brussels: Paul Legrain/CFC, I 9 9 2 ) .
t

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214

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been con1menst1 rate with tl1e scope of an1bitio11 . Tl1e la rge-scale

constrL1ction works, l i ke earlier projects - the north -sot1th j unction i's
a textbook exan1ple - dragged on for so long that entire sections of
the city were marked for extended periods by vacant sites where once
a bust l i ng city l i fe 11ad flourished. The furious pace at which new
projects fol l owed one another, when the preceding proj ects were far
from completed, was a flagrant a ffront to common sense and inevita
bly fed resi stance to new-bu i ld projects as we l l as 11osta lgia for the
city that had been lost. The fact that the past wou ld occupy sucl1 an
important place in Brt1ssel s i n the 1 9 80s ( both i n urban-planning
guidel i nes and in the zeal o f loca l heritage preservtionists) i s
therefore q u i te understandable.
What a l l these international projects also sha red was that they
were a l l criticized with l i ttle attempt at nuance by the generation of
architects who, i n the wake of May 1 9 6 8 , initiated a protest move
ment i 11 Brussels urban design. Strongly supported by a city popula
tion that had been tra u matized by the success ive transformations of
the pentagon, this movement q u i te l ogica l ly found a w i l ling audience
a mong local officials. The o i l crisis of the 1 970s and the takeover of
the Brussels market by foreign capital formed the breeding ground
for a new k i nd of activism: the reta king of the city by and for its
inhabi tants, with a traditional model of the city as its ral lyi ng cry.
This defined itself i n opposition to the revi led A thens Charter: a
close-knit functional mixing of h o using and sma l l businesses i n a
traditional-looking city.
And the activi sts once again championed the European project:
to combat the modern ization plans t l1at had been grafted onto the
international vocation of Brussel s, they proposed the reconstruction
of the Europea n city: the Brussels Declaration.
An army of neighbourhood committees, gathered within umbrell a
groups l ike Inter-Envi ronnement and BRAL, were seconded by young
architects who had j o i ned forces to form the ARAU ( A telier de
R ech erches et d 'A ction Urbaines, or Workshop for Urban Research
and Action) and who systematica l ly p u1sued the Brussels tradition
of the counter project. Cot1 ntless images of restored neighbourhoods
and rebuilt landmarks were dissem i nated, cana l izing a longing for a
lost convivia l i ty. The images entrenched themselves i n the collective

10

IO

ee Andre Barey (ed.) Declaration de Britxelles ( Brussels: AAM, 1 9 80). For the reconstruction of
the Laekensesrraat/Rue de Laeken on the sire where the so-ca lled Blt1e Tower once stood Forti and
the Fondation pour ! ' a rchitecture, in imitation of the ARAU, issued an 'Appeal to Young Eu ropean
Architects'. See i 9 89 - 1 9 95 De Wederopbouiu van een historische straat in Br1-tssel. Oproep aa1'1 de
jonge Europese architecten ( Brussels: Fondation pour l'architecrt1re, AG r 8 2 4 , 1 9 9 5 ) .

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Drawi ng by Brigitte Delft and A nne Gerard
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imagination and caused the city to be seen as a living fa b 1ic, whicJ1

had to be sewn back togetl1er, i n cl ose consultation with i ts inhabit
ants, througl1 a succession of sma l l-sca le operations. From tl1e very
beginning of this period, the metaphor of the crossroads of Europe
rett1rned to the centre of the debate i n urban planning politi cs .. This
was no l onger a proj ect to adapt the road networl<, but to design a
small chunk of city, a vast expanse of asphalt at the foot of the cent1al
railway station, which had served si nce the railway j unction works
as an open-air car par l< , bearing this pompot1s l abel ever sinc.e the
Tek hne Plan had envisioned its use.. as a moto1way exchange. The
ARAU won o ne of i ts first victories here, s ucceeding i Q. imposing a
conceptua l competition for the redesign of the site i n 1 9 6 9 . To the
winner of tl1e competition ( Groep Planning), the col lective opposed a
counter project involving the reconstruction of the Putterie Quarter,
which had once occupied the site i n question . 1 2 Princip a l ly a i med at
creating a bui lt-up front a long the route of the j unction, the proposa l
finally resu 1 ted, I 3 years later, in a compromise plan, wh ich led to the
present outcome, shifting the pursuit of the E uropean i dea from the
sphere of regional planning to a debate of a n a rchi tectural nature.

It

1 1

From G uest to Occupier

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T h is focusing of the debate on the countenance of the city at least had

the merit of l oo k i ng criticall y, for the first time, at the esta blishment
of E uropean institutions i n Brussels.
While a l l of the post-war plans shared the objective of showing
off the capital 's best assets i n order to attract them, t hese institutions
had i n tl1e meantime esta bli shed themselves east of the pentagon,
crus h i ng the whole of the formerly neo-classical Leopold Quarter
under the weight of their office-bui l di ng mass. Europe, once a highly
desi red guest, driving force or p retext for successive u rban transfor
mation p1ojects, had become an occupier. Incognito, i t had infiltrated
the c ity, l i ke a malignant tumour gradually eating away entire neigh
bourhoods.
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ln his thematic outline of the l1istory of Brussels urban plann ing, Evert Lagrou calls this the period
of populist L1rban design, in vv hich increased consciousness among citizens made the design of the city
a concern of the first order for local poJiticians. See Evert Lagrou, Welke Stedebouiu voor Brussel,
hoofdstad van Europa? ( Brussels: Vzw Sint-Lukaswerkgemeenschap, 1 9 8 9 ) .
1 2

ARAU, Quinze annees d 'action u1baine OU Britxelles vit pa1 ses habitants ( Brussels: ARAU/AFA, i 9 8 4 ) ,
64 - 67.

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i red to an issue of bL1 i l dings. To tl1e Belgian autl1ori ties, in the begi n
ning, it was eminently clear that the Europea11 presence wot1 l d be en
ti rely contained within tl1 e Berlaymont and Cha1le111agne Buildings,
which j ustified tl1e excavation of tunnels, underground car parks a 11d
a 1netro station. Tl1 i s level of th i n king did not evolve in su bsequent
yea rs. Tra pped in di plomatic si lence, unable to publicly claim the
status of European capital for Brussels, the Belgian state managed the
growth of the presence of Eu1opean institutions on an ad hoc basis.
When the i ssue of housing the Council of the European Union arose,
the state, too eager to recover the heavy investments i n infrastructure
agreed to at the foot of the Berlaymont, confined its inqui ries to
l ocating sufficient space a round the Sch t1man rounda bout.
Fol lowing a disastrous a rchitecture competition, a decision was
fina l l y made to gather a l l the competing architects into a single team,
the creative gen ius of which was synthesized in the construction of
the J ustus Li psi us Building. Crushed on one side by tl1 i s gigantic
edifice, the Mael beek Va l ley now saw the spectre of another mam
moth structure rising on the opposite ban k . In fierce competition
with Strasbourg and Luxem bourg to house tl1e seat of the E u ropean
Par l iament, the Belgian state decided to h ave an International
Congress Centre built by a consortium of banks and private develop
ers, a l l q uite happy to use this to pursue the j u icy development of the
tertiary sector in the Leopol d Quarter. 1 4 Fi fteen years of construction
l ater, the Parl iament Bt1 i l d ing, now officia l, undergoi ng continual
expansion, this whim of the gods, had imposed its gigantism without
its impla ntation ever having been submitted to public debate.
1 )

Patches
In a n a ttempt to stop the systematic demo l ition of the b l ocks of the
Schuman Quarter to accommodate administrative buildings, the
A R A U proposed rel ocating a l l of the E u ropean parl iamenta ry and
executive facilities to the vast Josaphat railway station i n Schaerbeek .
Linking i nstitutional buildings and cultural infrastructures as wel l
as housing, this was a veritable chunk of city, with a resol u tely neo
classical aspect, which aimed to provide a defin itive answer to the
continuous expansions of European institutions. A las, the time for
counter projects was over. The l ate 1 9 90s witnessed the completion
13

Phili ppe Laporta, ''De EEG in Bruss!. Verri j k i ng of verkrachting'', in A + , no. 9 1 , 1 9 8 6 , r 9 - 26.
14

Georges Tim1nerman, Main basse sur Bruxelles, argent, po11voir et betu11 ( Brussels: EOP, 1 9 9 1 ) .

218

of the Pa1lian1ent Building, as we l l as tl1e e1nergence of a pragmatic

and official reso l L1 tion to concen trate Eu 1opea 11 i nstitL1tio11s i n tl1e
Leopold Q L1 a rter. This state of affairs finally made it possi ble to co11sider this section of the city as a whole, with the express ambition of
reconnecting the barren urban structure with the su1rounding neigl1 bourl1oods. This ma1ked the sta.rt of the saga of the '' ptch '' plans,
which were brought forward as quickly as the regional ministers i n
charge succeeded one a nother and the levels of authority overl apped .
Herve Hasquin, then the Bru ssel-s commun ications minister, initiated a su perficial urban facel i ft competition, Les Sentiers de /'Europe
( '' Roads of Europe'' ), the winning proj ect of which, 15y Art & Bui ld,
essenti a l l y aimed at j ustifying the mall on the esplanade of the
E uropean Parl i a 1nent, the origin of which no one could remember.
However, time was pressi ng. The immi nent Belgian presidency of
the Council of the European Union impe l led the federal government
to commission a stL1dy into integrating the E uropean Parl iament
complex into the checkerboard of the Leopold Qua rter. With the
president of the European Commission, the prime minister convened
an advisory council on the question of the European presence in
Brussels. r s The w1iting of the report was entrusted to Rem Koolhaas,
who recommended organizing an urban design competition for a sus
taina ble coordination of the i mplantation of European institutions. ' 6
Against a l l expectations, the visionary Du tchman was not selected
for the invitation to tender, which was won by a n association of
Aries, Idom, L'Atel ier and the young Brussels architecture firm
M S - A . 1 7 With the appropriately evocative name ''ombudsplan '' ,
the project privileged the pre-exi stence of the urban structure and
marked a crucia l twofo ld advance. By deli beratel y polarizing the
European presence around the Mael beek Va l ley, i t succeeded i n creat
i ng a synthesis between the claims of the residents' committees (work
on the Chaussee d'Ette1beek/Etterbeeksesteenweg) and the visibili ty
of official buildings. In addition, by adapting, through clear interven
tions, the traffic pattern of the n i 11eteenth-century checkerboard,

,.
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>

I5

For a fu l l accoL1nt of thi epi ode in the history of the implantation of Europe in Brussels, see Vincent
Carton, ''Cinq ans de cooperation et d'a'ffrontement entre le actcurs natio11aux, regionaux et loce:1 u x
( r 9 9 9 2004 ) '' , i n : Carola Hein (ed.), I.es Cahiers de La Cambre Architecture no. 5 , Bruxelles
l'Europenne, capitale de qi1i? Ville de qi1i? ( Brt1ssels: La Lettre Volee, 200 6 ) .
-

r6

See Brt1ssels, Capital of Europe. Fi11al Report, October 2.00 1 , European Commis ion, Belgia11
Pre idency unpublished report, 200 1 . See a lso I wan Strauven, ''Koolhaas in Brus e l '' , A+, no. 1 7 6,
J u ne/J u l y 2002, 1 7 6 - r 7 7.

17

See ''Ombudsplan ,, , (interview wirh Benoit Moritz), A+, no.

84, October/November i.003, 46

219

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it managed to go beyond the goal of a mere urban patch. The prema.ture 1esignation of the first min ister of tl1e Brussels Capita l Region
buried the proet> A mediator between tl1e E u ropea11 Un ion an the
various Belgian a 11d Brussels a L1thorities has since been appointed, a
kind of public foreman whose task w i l l be to coordi nate the whole of
the obj ectives of the E u ropean Quarter. Today, E u rope i s till an enterpri se, as good and as pertinent as i t may be, but not yet a project .

Surrea l ism! ?

There is somethi ng surreal i stic about the role Europe ha1s'p l ayed i n
the urban development of Brussels i n the second half of the twe11tieth
centL1ry. As an idea or dream it was, on the one hand, the driving
force behind a series of radical projects w itl1 metropolitan ambitions
out of a l l p roportion . As a real ity, i t behaved as a long-awaited guest
who'd been at the party all a long. The fragments of grandiose
projects came face to face with the amputated ambition of the great
project i tsel f.
Tl1e combination of dream a11d real i ty gave rise to an i mage
that can be described as surrealistic as wel l : an i mmense collage, a
j uxtaposition of conflicting i mages, scales and architecture i dioms.
An exciting spectacle of contrasts and paradoxes through which
Brussels, as an artefact, seems to apply the processes of surrealism to
its appearance. More than i n Paris - the undisputed cradle of surreal
ism - the su bconscious seems to have found expression i n the built
environment.
And as is so often the case, the cliche at some point builds u p so
m uch power that i t starts to lead a life of its own and i s elevated to
the level of a fo unding discourse. The merry chaos of contrasts and
paradoxes is perceived as an exciti11g quality and raised to the status
of a manifesto. In this way, the c liche gradual l y penetrates the under
lying l ogic of urban and architectu1a l production. Like the observed
'' beauty of t he ordinary'' , '' Belgian-sty le surrea lism '' becomes sud
denl y operative as a newly unveiled, unwritten law. In the best-case
scenario it offers a challenge to the contemporary designer worki ng
on the city; i n the worst, a n alibi to simultaneously cover u p tl1e me
d iocrity and the absurdity of_ urban design practice.
Shoul d Brussel s dare once agai n to ela borate l a rge-scale urban
projects, any attempt to erase the heterogeneity of the Brussels land
scape woul d represent a mi ssed opportunity. P l t1mbing the q u a lities
of the urban surrealism of Brussels and putting to use its spectacle of

221

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222

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11 rban pa1adign1s sl1ould be tl1e basic para111ete1s of a new metropol i - "

tan proj ect, ce1tainly i f i t intends to employ t11e p 1ese11ce of a stro11g
Eu ropean Uni o11 as a driving force . Al ong with its complex geopol i ti
cal structure, wi tl1 its oft-desc ribed demogra phic n1osaic - th
Brussels of the neigh bou rhoods - and i ts multil ingual rea l ity, the
concrete form of Brussels also mal<es it the q u intessentia l capital of
Europe. B1ussels as tl1e ''Theatre of D ifferences '' is rightly the cent1e
of tl1e European Union, precisely because it is d i fficu lt to define, has
no clear image, i s m L1 lti headed, d isplays di fferences and is open and
l iberta rian.
Reconnecting witl1 a lost tradition of u rba11 pla11njng on a regiona l sca le offers a way out of a societal debate on u rban design that has
been dominated by local interests s ince the 1 9 70s. The reintroduction
of a great urban design concept can play an i mportant role i n this,
because, not as a petrified image, but as a p roactive plan, it can
form a basis for disct1ssion and negotiati o n . I t i s of fundamenta l im
portance, however, that this concept be sim11 l taneously rob11st and
flexible. On the one hand i t must be powerfu l enough to propel the
project safely through the various storms of Brussels and European
politics. I f i t is not merely to add yet another layer to Brussels's su rre
a lism, on the other hand, it must be flexible enough , and incorporate
strategies, to escape the aporia in which the European presence i n
Brussels has become m i red. Brt1 ssels, after a l l , i s first and foremost,
even in its contin u a l l y cl1angi11g institutional context, a parad igm
fo1 the European chan1eleon.
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Elia Zenghelis

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Dizzy from a cruel century of political tur1noil. and confusion, our

insight into the relative values in architecture is deformed by an un
precedented disorder of bewildering conditioning, to which we have
become the prisoners. In reappraising the priorities of our thinking,
we have blocked from our consciousness the fact that the essence
of architecture's intrinsic uniqueness is its fo rm : it is the relative and
pertinent use of form, its significance and appropriateness to our
public life within the context of a political ideal that should be our
primary concern.
It is peculiar how, in the framework of our profession's accepted
wisdom, all this engenders a generic sense of fear, to confront, rethink
and revise our immobilized and conditioned reflexes.
The debate within the architectural discourse persistently revolves
aro und a preoccupation with aesthetics: it is essentially all about
unacknowledged 'aesthetic' apprehensions, albeit against assertions
to the contrary - and behind a pseudoscientific pragmatic faade a near-paranoia that has become a cheerless demonstration of
deluded claims.
In the name of analytical thoroughness it a lways comes down to
a discussion of style, of big or small, human or contextual, modernist
or post-modernist, with all the fears this engenders - and u ltimately
to a fear of facing the paradox of our present-day reality: the paradox
of our unresolved conflict between the idea of democracy (as a p11 b
licly administered decision-making process ) and the currency of our
blinded belief in the rights ( and absolute power) of the individual .
In other words, the paradox of pluralism and of our srrender to the
tyranny of libera lism. Prisoners to the predicament of the free mar
ket, we find ourselves uninvolved in the name of consensus - and in
a bind that immobil izes our ability to decide: and architectural form
is the object of absolute decision .
Thus the fate of cities today is in the hands of tl1ose who maintain

225

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that L i beral democracy is the end-of-(city ) - h istory and who clam

that this hybrid process has fina l l y had the conclusiveness of reconci l
i ng the i ndividual with the collective, arguing that what works for
one perso11 works for everybody: a p 1ocess wl1ere anyth i 11g goes a11d
whe1e tl1e possi b i l i ty of j udgment i s denied.
At this stage of geopolitical history it is clear thar 04r i l l usion
about the virtue of our post-democratic condition should be fi nall y
ove1; that i t i s a pastiche of democracy, the power of a sma l l o ligar
chy that detains power, eluding its responsi b i li ties. The cel e.brated
'' i n formality '' of our contemporary cities ( sprawl, '' bottom-up t1r
banis.1 n'' , ''self-organ i zation'' and otl1er similar '' rrfythologies'' ) is in
the majority of cases a ''Trojan Horse '' for the manipulative pol i tics
of urban exploitation: a n i n forma l exploitation reinforcing the power
of ma rket, a power in which everybody i s welcome to participate as
consumer, while nobody is invited as ruler.
In tl1 i s respect, the task of thinking Brt1ssel s as the Cap ital of
E t1rope offered i tself as a fitting test bed for arriving at an approxi ma
tion of a n ideal model, where the relative and pert inent use of form,
i ts significance and appropriate ness to public life, can be considered
within tl1e context of a political idea l . As European cities have by
now l ost their homogeneous cultural constitu tion, Brussels ( home
to diverse communities with multiple cultura l , pol itical and spiritu a l
a l legiances ) is the archetypal E t1 ropean city, p hysical ly exemplified
by i ts heterogeneous c luster of dist inct parts. It i s the sanctuary of a
dormant - and often overt - conflict: and this i s i ts defining factor.
It is potentially its collective conscio11sness, i f seen not as social deficit
to be iemedied, or negative confro11tation i n 11eed of consensual
harmony, but as positive tension, the i ngredient of a collective coex
i stence that would reveal i ts public appeara nce, exempl i fying the way
present-day Europe can recognize itsel f assertively. Such a reinven
tion of the idea of tl1e city today and the recognition of it as the es
sence of our urban rea l ity, has led i n the man i festo presented i n this
book, to a re-examination of the relative applica b i lity of architectt1ral
form, with the aim to rei n force the latent vision of the city - as a
whole and i n its constituent parts.
However, I would l i ke to suggest that the endeavour of worki ng
with such an ideologica l conviction on a manifesto for Brussels as tl1e
Capital of Europe projects this man i festo towards a more ambitious
and general tas k . It consists - as a lso the mani festo i tself suggests - i n
the reassessment of the symbolic power of the city over the generic
i 1n ma nence of urbanization.

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Tl1 e city is defined by opposition; i n essence i t is the opposition be

tween cityness - the appearance of a dense and shared space - and ur
banization - the territorial con sun1 ption made out of indiyidual
dwel l i ngs. In p resent-day Et1rope, wl1 icl1 is so densely urban ized, this
opposition can be restored by contraction and retrnchment i nto a
clearly articu lated, bounded and intensel y dense territory.
In the present-day process of urbanization, we witness the gradual
disappearance of any clear exteriority to the city, while o lder towns
and v i l l ages are gradual l y being al l owed u p b y an inexorable
sprawl of private dwe l l i ngs. On tl1e one hand, h istorical
distinctions
,,
between town - as a centre - and cou ntry -as the space i n between are being eroded by tl1 i s quagmi re and on the other, the new settlers'
raison d'etre for this process ( finding private sec l t1sion i i1 the serenity
of the countryside) i s being cance ll ed out by the fact that environ
menta l l y, i t constitutes an inexorable entropy, the l ogica l conclusion
of wh ich w i l l be its potential contribution to the obl iteration of a
col lective l i fe on the p lanet. O ur present responsib i l ity towards our
art and our priority is to anticipate, by conjecture, a possi ble future
that wou l d be an alternative to the consequences that a re i mp l icit i n
the present state of uncontrol led urbanization.
I t i s i nevita ble that our mental habit w i l l gradua l l y change, as l iv
i ng cond i tions become more and more unbeara ble, with the l u x ury of
private consumption w ithering away, i n front of a painfu l real i zation
that l i fe is becoming u n tenable. Our consciousness w i l l adj t1st to the
ominous and apocal yptic approacl1 ing danger we are facing and wi l l
begin to adhere to priorities tl1at are a lien - even repugnant to today's
European citizen.
I n the process, pol itical circumsta nces w i l l necessitate transforma
tion. Without wishi ng to predict the form this w il l take, one thing
seems to make sense: the processes of individualism and consump
tion at the expense of the collective - and of survival - w i l l no longer
be possible and pol i tics wil l not be sustainable as tl1e by-product of
the present, fam i l iar, cap i ta list economic system. Leaving aside the
fu11damental steps to be taken to arrest the entropy of global warm
ing (and the pol itical and economic reversal s this w i l l requ ire) and
only by consideri ng the q t1al ity of urban l i fe, one can only concl ude
that the city and urbanization w i l l have to be - symbol ical l y and
pl1ysica l l y - separated, as two distinct, related, but j uxtaposed ecolo
gies. It seems inevitable that the retrenchment of the cities into clearly
and strictly defined entities wi l l become necessary.
However, this coul d be the catal yst for a return to a genu i ne
.

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The c i ty: a rea l form-pl ace of unprecedented beauty

230

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concern for the collecti ve and the reactivation of the public do1 a i 11
in which the l i fe of each member wi l l become an active and conscious
act of participation in a col lective way of living, s i 1nply beca use
without this menta l transformation, l i fe would become untena ble.
In such a scenario, the city, instead of being merely a geogra phic
place name, would rega in its eJ.ll i nence, not only as desira ble centre,
but, given tl1e application of an appropriate i deologica l, social
and environmental vision i t would become a real fo1m-pl ace of
unprecedented beauty.
I t is for this and similar scena rios that the a rchitect of today
should be prepared and begin to project the appro p"riate visions. The
self-indulgence of the contempora ry Star A rchi tect, only contributes
to the visual and environmental po l lution created by the current eco
nomic power of plu ralism, of which he i s only the slave.
I nstead of the present-day sel f-referentia] and narcissistic struc
tures that are emblems of the market - such as landmarl<s or what
today i s cal led '' Iconic Building'' - we should begin to propose large
sca l e architectural insta l lations of unprecedented size, punctual, lim
i ted and simple large-sca le urban forms - topographic acupun cture
with a big needle capa ble of a bsorbing the entire urbanization of
the sprawl . Simple monumentalities that make the i r intention clear
by means of their form (or the way their intention i s i nstil led by the
form ) and their strategic positioni ng, as logica l concl usions of the
topographic dynamic and the social geography of the l ocation (or the
way the l atent intelligence of each p l ace is capita l i zed upon - and
projected onto a future evolution ).
Remi n i scent i n scale of the a ustere and daring visions of the criti
cal radica ls of the 1 9 60s in E u rope, sucl1 as Superstu dio and Oswa ld
Mathias Ungers, these would be pro-active rather that representing
a utopia. Critica l visions such as the Continuous Mon ument ( 1 9 6 8 ) ,
Rossi 's Locomotiva 2 project for Torino of l 9 7 2, or Oswal d Mathias
Ungers' theoretical p rojects for Berl in ( 1 9 63 - 1 9 6 9 ) were not simply
a ffirm i ng the autonomy of architecture as a preconditi o n of engage
ment with the city, b ut especial ly the poss i b i l ity of using l a rge-scale
a rchitectura l i nterventions to po litically question the city, and the
forces that make it.
But above all, one thing has to be stressed that in the p resent need
for a vision - and i n this scenario, the utopia i s not about architec
tu re; i t is about po l itics. Thus the b ig needle i s req u i red to represent
both the p u b l ic ( institutiona l ) and the private (collective ) rea lms so
that the ensu ing project cou ld be buildable, today even, given the

231

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pol itical wi l l . And indeed they are a lready needed. But the l inge1'.. ing
q uestion remains: economics or politics ?
Thus, i n the case of Brussels, tl1e projects are add1essing a p o litical
rea l ity, not necessa rily so di fferent from tl1at of Belgi u m : they s imply
do not re ly only on the i dea of the market opportunity.
Tl1e projects engendered by this approach would .not attempt to
i nvent programmes; conceived as a system of formal acupuncture,
they woul d be i nserted strategically within the existing '' urban ''
pond. Architecture would be seen as a system of walls as strategi c
pa rtitions - whicl1 is its q u intessence: as s 11ch, i t would embody the
idea of the city and be occupied by any progr amme tl1at the citizens
will generate.
In short, while tak ing a deli berate position aga inst the cu1rent
political correctness of plura l ism, complexity and fragmentation,
we n1ust embrace the return to the big-scale proj ect within the cities
i n archi tecture: a project removed from aesthetics, located, once
more, i n the political domain. The big-scale proj ect, as a system of
punctual i nterventions that confront the given, i ndividual patterns
of the cities into which i t i s i nserted, can i n this way sharpen the ieal
vitality of political struggle: not a hybrid, but the confrontation be
tween collective decisions and individual actio11 . It i s a position that
must be proj ected as a general polemic about tl1e future inevita bil i ty
of a new monumental urban form and i ts appearance i n the post
urban world .
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Joac h i m D e c l erck (Bel g i u n1)

stud ied archit ec ture a n d ur ban p l a n
n i ng at G hent U n i v ers ity, B e l g i u m a n d
obt a i 11ed h i s maste r's degree at t l1e
Berlage I nstitute i n 2005, w l1ere he was
engaged i n the research programme o n
capita l cit i e s. He is curre n t l y wor k i ng
as an i ndependent architect and as
an assistant professor at the Berlage
I nstitute, where l1e is curat i 11g a n d
coor d i n at i n g the B r u s s e l s proj ect
and i s rn ember of the l nternat io11 a l
Archi tecture B i e r1 n a l e Rotterdam 2007.

P i er Vittorio Aure l i ( It a l y )
i s a11 architect a 11d ed ucator.
After gradua t i 11g from the l st i t uto
d i A rch itett ura d i Ve nezia, Au re I i
obta ined a doctorate i n u rban p l a n n i n g ,
a master's degree a t t h e Berlage I n sti
tute, a n d a P h D at the Berlage I nstitute/
De lft U n i v ersity ofTec hnol ogy. H i s
t l1eoret i ca I stud i e.s focus on the re I a t i o n s h i p bet we e n a r c 11 it e ct u r a I f o r 111 ,
po I i t i c a I t 11 i 11 k i n g a n d u r b a n h i st o r y.
Aurel i teaches at the Berlage I nstit ute
- w here he i s u n it professor a n d respo n
s i b l e for the ' research on the city'
programme. C u r rent l y he is a v i s iting
professor at the Archi tect u r a l A ssoc ia
t i o n i n London, C o l u m b i a U n i vers ity
i n NewYork, and Delft U n iversity
ofTec h n o l ogy. Aure l i has lectured
a n d p u b l i shed worldwide, a n d he i s
current l y wor k i n g on a book entitled
Tl1e Poss i b i l ity of A bs o l ute A rc h itec
t u re - a study on arch itectural form
frorn Brama nte to M ies.Toget her with
Mart i r1 0 Tattara he i s the cofou nder
of D O G M A , an architectural col l ect i ve
centred on the project of the city. Very
recent l y, D O G M A received the l akov
C h e r n i khov P r i z e for the best emerg i n g
arc h itectural practice.

C r i s t i n a Garcia Fo ntan ( S p a i n )
studied at the School of A rc h itectu re i n
A Corufia before attend i ng the Berlage
I nstitute, f rom w h i c h she grad uated
i 11 the summer of 2005. She i s currently
deve l o p i n g l1ou s i n g projects with
a focus on susta i n a b l e a rchitecture.
Garcia Fo ntan coord i nates a research
i nvest igation at the U n i v ersity of
A C o r u ii a conce r n i n g met ropol itan
areas a n d the evo l ut i o n of ur ban form i n
G a l i c i a and i s d o i n g a P h D i n Te rritorial
Org a n i zation at the U n iversity of
Santiago de C o m post e l a.
H i romJ_ H a r u k i (Japan)
worked at the office of ltami City
as a manager of the p u b l ic b u i l d i ng
process before atten d i ng the Berl age
I n stitute, from w h i c h she gr ad uated
i n the summer of 2005. S h e i s current l y
wor k i n g at a n a rch itectural office i n
Japan where she i s engaged i 11 the
d e s i g n of p u b l i c space. Her research
i nterests are i n the i nte ract ions of u n
specified people i n p u b l i c space and
how to encour age these dynamics
through d e s i g n .

Bernard i n a Borra ( Italy)

studied architecture and urban d e s i g n
at the U n i v ersity Roma I l l , i n 2005 she
g rad uated from the Berlage I nstitute.
After that she worked one year i n
Brussels as an arch itect a n d book
editor/des i g ner, and rec ent ly, she
started wor k i n g as an urban d e s i g n er
i n A msterdam. O n tl1e side sl1e does
research 011 urban d e s i g n , writes
artic les, a n d is a tutor at Roma 1 1 1 .
She i s cofounder of P l u s i ngarch itects.

Gery Lelout re ( B e l g i u m )
studied archi tecture at the Victor H orta
I nstitute i n Brussels a n d obta ined
h i s master's degree i n urban p l a n n i n g
a t t h e Cat holic U n i versity of Leuven,
B e l g i u m i n 2006. H e i s current l y work i n g
as a n arch itect i n Brusse l s , i s the as
sistant ed itor-in-chief of BrU ( B r usse l s
review of urban p l a n n i ng ) and teaches
urban p l a n n i n g at the La Cambre I nsti
tute i n Bruss e l s .

Weerapat C hokedeetaweeanan
(Th a i l a n d )
studied at S i l pakorn U n i versity before
atte n d i n g the Berl age I nstitute, from
w h i c h he g raduated i n the summer
of 2005. He is i nterested i n u rba11 a n d
subu rban phenon1ena, part i c u l a r l y
i n deve l o p i n g countries. H e current l y
works i 11 Bangkok.

Bart Melort (Bel g i u m )

studied at the Cat holic U n i versity of
Leuven, B e l g i u m , before attend i ng the
Berl age I nstitute in 2003. D u r i n g h i s
st u d i es he was engaged i n three l a n d
scape projects for the ity of Tirana,
A l b a n ia, i t1 c l u d i n g a sq uare and p u b l i c
park i n the centre of the city, together
with Marc Ryan. Melort i s current ly
wo rking i n B e l g i u m and start i n g l1 i s
ow11 office, M i ke ViktorVi kt or a re 11 it ects,
i n A 11twerp.
A gata M i erzwa (Poland)
studied architecture i n Poz n a n , Poland.
Prior to atte n d i n g the Berl age I nstitute
she was st u d y i n g and working i n the
N etherlands. After gr aduat i ng i n the
summer of 2006, she collaborated with
D O G M A . C u rrently she is l i v i n g and
work i n g i n Poland.
A l exa N u r nb erger (Germa ny)
studied a rchitecture at the Tec h n ical
U n i versi ty, M u 11 icl1 and at the Escuela
Tecn ica S u perior de Arqu itectura
Barcelona. Before attend i n g the
Berl age I n stitute in 2003 she worked
for M A P, J.L. Mateo A rch itects i n
Barcelona, S p a i n . D u r i ng her postgrad
uate studies sl1e concentrated on
urban d e s i g n , which i s a l so the field
of i nterest of her personal work, d o i n g
projects for the city ofT i r ana, A l bania.
N u rn berger is curre n t l y wor k i n g
at Herzog & D e Meuron.
Konstantinos Pantaz i s
( G reece)
stud ied at the Nationa l Tec h n i c a l
U n i versity Athens a n d De lft U n i v ersity
ofTec h n o logy, before j o i n i ng the Ber
lage I nstitute from w h i c h he grad uated
i n the s u m m e r of 2005. Among others,
he has worked for A namorphosis i n
Athens, J u n Aoki i n Tokyo, Fa rjadi
Farj adi i n London, OMA i n Rotterdam
a n d 51 N 4 E i n Brussels. He j u st com
p l eted h i s year of service i n the Greek
N a t i o n a l A rmy.

236

Marc Ryan (Canada)

was ed ucated i n landscape architecture
and u r b a r1 design at the U n i versity of
G u e l pl1, Canada ( 1 999) and the Berlage
I nstitute (2005). Prior to cond uct i ng
postg rad uate researcl1 w i t l1 a foc us on
conte111 porary ur ban i sm, Rya n 's profes
s i or1al experience i n c l udes practice
i n Canada and the U S A . He c u rrently
works as an urban designer at West 8 i n
Rotterdam and as an a s s i stant tutor at
t 11 e Be r I a g e I n st it u t e.
Heng S h i ( C h ina)
st u d i ed at theTi a n j i n U n iversity Sc hool
of A rc h itectu re, C h i na (1 998-2003)
before attend i ng the Berlage I n stitute,
from w h i c h she graduated i n the sum
mer of 2005. S h e i s current l y working at
Mario C uc i n e l l a A r c h i tects i n Bologna,
lta I y.
l wan Straen ( B e l g i u m )
studied arch itecture at G hent U n i ver
sity and i s prepar i ng a P h D on the
work of the modern ist architect V i ctor
Bourgeois. He i s c u rrently working as
project coord i nator at A + and at the
Centre of Fine A rts for the BO ZAR
Arc h itecture progra mme, and teaches
arch itect u r a l h i story at the La Cambre
I n stitute ( B r u ssels).

P i e r Paol oTa m b u r e l l i ( I t a l y )
stud ied at the U n i versity of Genoa
before attend i ng the Berlage I nstit ute,
from w h i c h he graduated i n tl1e s u m m e r
of 2005. He now has a sma 1 1 office,
baukuh, based i n Genoa.
Mart i no Tattara ( I t a l y)
st udied architect ure a t t h e l . U . A . V.
i n Ven ice and at tl1e Berlage I nstit ute,
from wl1 i c h he g raduated i n 2005.
D u r ing h i s st udies at the Berl age
he par t i c i pated i n the research pro
gramme on capital c i t i es, i nvestigat i n g
Tirana and Br ussels. He i s c u rrently
a P l1 D c a n d i date i n U r b a n i s m a t t h e
1 . U . A . V. i n Ven i ce. He i s cof o u n d e r with
Pier Vittorio Aure l i of D O G M A .

M a r i oTronti (Italy)
i s a po l it i c a l t h i nker, p h i losopl1er,
and writer. I n the 1950s he joined the
I t a l i a n Co111 m u n i st Party. With Ran i ero
Pa n z i e r i he was the cofounder of the
po l i t i cal j o u r 11 a l Quaderni Rossi, after
w h i c h he became the d i rector of Classe
Operaia, and he was, among others,
a reg u l ar contri butor of the magaz i n e
Contropiano . l-le i s the autl1or of Ope1ai
e Capitale ( 1 966) - t l1 e s e m i n a l book
on the lta l i a11 Worke r i s m Movement
(Opera i smo) - Con le Spa/le al Futuro
( 1 992 ), La Politica a7 Tramonto ( 1 998),
and Politica e Destina (2006) .

N i k i as Vee I ken (G ermany)

rece i ved h i s d i ploma i n 2002 at the
Te c h n i c a l U n i versity of Braunschweig,
Germany before attending the Berl age
I nstitute, f rom w h i c h he graduated i n
the summer of 2005. He has recently
col la borated with the Urban Design
Department at the Tec h n ica I U n i v e r s i t y
of Brau nschweig to develop an u r b a n
d e s i g n st u d i o on the M usee d e l ' E u rope
i n B russels. Vee I ken i s c u rrently
col la borat ing on several projects i n
Germa ny, where he i s prepar i ng t1 i s
P h D research i n the fie l d of u r b a n i sm.
D u bravka V ra n i c ( C roat ia)
graduated from the Fac u lty of A rc h i tec
t u re at the U n i versity of Zagreb before
atte n d i n g the Berlage I nstitute, f rom
w h i c h she graduated i n the s u m me r of
2005. With her col leag ues, she won a
compet i t i o n for an apartment b u i l d i n g
i n Kr api na, C roat i a i n 2002 and i n e a r l y
2006 t h e urban d e s i g n competition for a
school, sports h a l l and swi m m i n g pool
i n Poree, C roatia. V r a n i c works as a
free-lance arch itect i n Zagreb.

c,

E l i a Zengheris ( G reece, B e l g i u m )
received h i s di ploma from the
A rch itectu r a l A ssoc iation School of
A rch itecture ( A A ) i n 1 961 and i n 1 975
he founded,, the Office for Metropolitan
A rch itecture w i t h Ren1 Kool haas, Zoe
Zeng h e l i s a n d Madelon V r ie sendorp
i n London. I n 1 987, with E l e n i G igantes,
h e est9bl i shed G i g antes Zenghe l i s
Arch itects based i n Athens and
B russels. He has taught at the Berl age
I n stitute for more than ten years and
has been a professor at the E T H Z o r i c h
and the D U sseldorf Academy of F i n e
A rts. F u rthe rmore, h e has taught at the
rc h itect u r a l Association i n London,
P r i nceton U n i versity, t l1e E PF L
Lausanne, and i s current l y professor
at the Accad e m i a d i A r c h ittetura d i
M e n d r isio.
Z h i Yi ( C h i na)
st u d i ed atTongj i U n i versity i n Shanghai
before att e 11 d i n g the Berlage l 11 st it ute,
f rom w h i c h he g raduated i n the s u m n1 e r
of 2005. He is now work ing at the St u d i o
of Hybrid Strategies i n S h a n g h a i . T h e
studio's research i nterests are i n the
prob lems and strateg ies related to
the rapid process of C h i nese u r b anity.
These research targets i nvolve col l a bo
rat ion with gove rnment agencies and
developers to affect real city practices.

Lo.

....

c
0
u

To m We iss (Switzer l a n d )
studied arch itect u re i n B i el - B i e n n e ,
Switzerland. P r i o r t o attending the
Berlage I n stitute he col lab orated with
architect u r a l fi rms based i n Germany
and Switzer l a n d . He graduated in the
s u m m e r of 2005 and i s c ur rently l i v i n g
and working i n Z u r i c h . H e i s a research
er and assistant teacher at the Z u r i c h
U n i versity of Applied S c i e n ces.

237

I l l ustration C redits

64t Ad vert i sing broc h u re for the Office

National pour I ' Achevement de la
Jonction No rd-Mid
38 A i rprint - l nfog raphie, AEL
22, 32r A l i son + Peter S m i t l1son
Urban Structuring, StL1 d i o Vista,
London / NewYork, 1 967
12, 60t, 60b Arc h i ves C . D. P., Brussels
208 A rc h i ves C . F. E . , Brussels
214 A rc h i ves d ' Arch itecture Moderne,
Brussel s
56, 59 A rc h i ves d e la V i l l e de Bruxe l les
52 Archplus nr 1 79, Aacher1, 2006
210 G u stave Bee l s (ed.), Straten en
stenen. Brussel: stadsgroei 1780- 1980,
Brussels, 1 982
10 t, 10 b, 14 16, 18 t, 18 b, 42 Leonardo
Benevolo, The History of the City,
Massachu setts, 1 980
6 Berlage I nstitute, Hunch, nr 9,
Rotterdam, 2006
36b Brussels Capital Region
48 Henri Carti er-Bresson
194 Casabella 278, M i lan, 1 963
54, 58, 64b Lisette Danckaert,
Bruxelles, cinq siecles de ca1'tographie,
Brussels, 1 989
24 Ad van Denderen, H o l lar1dse
Hoogte
70b E u ropean Comr11 i ssion
153 Fond at i on Le Corbusi er, Paris
141 Fo nds lco nog raph i q u e Brussels
44 ltalo I nsolera, Roma Mode1na
1870-1970,Tu r i n , 2001
230 H e i n r i c h Klotz, Paper Architecture,
NewYork, 1 990
32 A l ex S. Maclean
62 Alex Papad opoulo s, Urban
Regimes and Strategies: Building
Europe's Central Executive District
in Brussels, C h icago, 1 996
2 12b Quinze annees d1actio11 urbaine
ou Bruxelles vu parses habitants,
Brussels, 1 984
28 Aldo Rossi, L'architettura de/la
Citta, C o l l ana, 1 987
50 G i an Pao l o Semi no (ed.), Schinkel,
Bologna, 1 993
206, 212t C o l l ectie lwan Strau ven
Brussels
226 Bruno Zevi, Storia dell'architettu1a
Moderna,Tu r i r1 1 950
I

Brussels -A Manifesto. Towards the

Capital of Europe is based on t 1e results
of the second year advanced research
studio Brussels Capital of Europe,
organi zed at tl1e Berlage I nstitute from
September 2004 to J u l y 2005, and coo rdi
nated by PierVittorio Aureli. Pa ra l l e l
to t h i s publ ication, and i n the framework
of the fift ietl1 a n n iversary of t l1e s i g n i n g
of t h eTreaty of Rome (the official start
of the E u ropean project), the ext1 i bit ion
and the i 11ternat i onal syr11pos i u m A
Vision for Brussels. ln1agining the Capital
of Europe w i l l be h e l d i n t l1e Center for
F i n e A rts i n B russe ls, from 1 6 March to
20 May 2007.
The publ ication, exl1 i bition and
sympos i u m are an i n iti a t i ve of the
Berlage I nsti t ute and are conceived and
executed together with N A i P u b l ishers
(Rotterdam), the l r1formation Centre for
A rch itectu re,Tow11 P l a n n i n g and Design
( Brussels) arid the Centre for Fine A rts
(BOZAR, Brussels).
Authors
Pier Vitto r i o Au re I i , Bernard i n a Borra
Joac h i m Declerck, Agata M i e rzwa,
Martino Tattara,Tom We iss

'

On the basis of the results of the

research studio Brussels Capital of
Europe, by Ber11ardi 11a Borra, Wee rapaat
C hokedeetaweeanan, Joac h i m
Declerck, C r i stina Garc ia Fo ntan,
H i romi Haruki, Bart Melort, Alexa
N u rnberger, Konstant i nos Pantazis,
Marc Ryan, Heng Shi, Pier Pao lo
Ta mburel l i, MartinoTattara, N i k las
Vee I ken, D u b ravka V ranic,Tom Weiss
and Z h i y i Yang.
General Coord i nation
Joacl1 i m Declerck ( Berlage I nstitute)

'

238

B r u s s e l s - A M a n ifesto
Towards t he Capital of E u rope

P u b l i c ation coord i nator

Veron ique Patteeuw ( N A i P u b l i shers)
E d i t o r i a l a d v i sor
Salomon Frausto ( Be r l a ge I n stit ute)
-

Tran s l a t i ons
.
P ierre Bo uv ier, Richard Sad leir
Copy editor
D ' La i 11e Camp

Graph i c Des ig
Karel & Aagje Martens

P u b I isher
Eelco v a n We l i e ( N A i P u b l i shers)
Co-publisher
I C ASD/C I A U D - A + Editions
A Vision for Brussels

I magining t h e Capital of E u rope

C u rators
P i er Vittorio Au re I i ( Be r l age I nstitute)
Joac h i m Declerck (Berlage I n stitute)
Ex h i b it i o n coo rd i 11 at o rs
Roela11d D u d a l (Berl age I nstitute)
l wan Strauven ( A + Bazar)
Sympos i u m coordi ntor
lwan Strauven ( A + Bazar)
C u rato r i a l advisors
Stefan Devold ere (A+)
Veron i q u e Patteeuw ( N A i P u b l i shers)
-

Ex pert advi sors

Jens Aerts, Kristiaan Barret,
C hantal Dassonvi I le, Li even De Ca uter,
P h i l i ppe ltschert, Ch ristian Lasserre,
Benoit Moritz, Marie-Laure Roggemans,
Sav ina van de Put
Research and reject assistance
H e r l i n d e Van Langenhove
E x h i b ition arch itect u re
Office Kersten Geers David Van
Severen

Berlage I n s t i t u t e Research
Studio Brussels Capital of
E u rope

The second year adv a11ced research

studio B1ussels Capital of Europe was
developed i n c l ose co l laborat ion and
with the support of the following i nstitu
tions i nvol ved i n the u rl:>an develop111ent
and debate i n Brussel s :

Coproduc.t ion
,

The pub I ication B1ussels -A Manifesto.

Towards tl1e Capital of Europe, and the
exhil)itipn and i nternational sympos i u m
A Vision f9r Brussels. ln1agining the
Capital of Europe are a coprod uct io11 of:
The Berl age I nstitute Rotterdam, post
.g raduate laboratory for arch itecture
www;be r I age-i 11st it ute. n I

The Ministry of Mobility and Public

N A i P u b l ishers, Rotterdan1
Works of the B1ussels Capital Region,
www. 11a i pub I ishers. n I
the Ministry of Planning of t/1e Brussels
Capital Region, th Regional Transport
BOZAR, Centre for F i n e A rts, Brussels
Con1pany MI VB-STIB, the Cabinet of the
www. boza r. be
First Aldern1an of Culture and Urbanism
.,C I A U D/I CAS D, I nformation Centre for
of the City of Brussels, the National
Arch itect ure, Town P l a n n i ng and Design
Railway Company NMBS-SNCB,
www. c i a ud-icasd . be
Eurostation, the Belgian Governn1ent
Buildings Agency, the Office of
For their energy, expert i se and comm it
Infrastructure and Logistics Brussels
mer1t that made t h i s project possi b le,
of the European Commission, the Po1t
we wou ld l i ke to thank, at the Berlage
Authority of Brussels, tl1e Brussels
I nstitute: A l e jandro Zaera Polo,
International A i1port Company, the King
Rob Deeter, Vedran M i m ica,
Boudew1jn Foundation, the Flemish
M i c k Morssink, A ng e l i ne Hoogenhout,
Government Architect, the Flen1ish
and Franc;oise Vos; at tl1e Ce11tre for
Dutch House, the Depa1tment of Cultural Fine A rts (B OZAR): Paul D u j a rd i n,
Infrastructure of t/1e French Community,
Pablo Fe rnandez, A xel l e A nc ion,
Deloitte Real Estate Consultancy,
lwan St rauve11, Severine Degee,
Robe/co, the Center of Fine Arts BOZAR,
Leen Daems, Leen Geysen, Catherine
ICASD/CIAUD and tl1e A + architectu1e
M ussely, Ludo Wil l e m s and I g nace
magazine, the Sint-Lucas A rchive, and
B u l t i nck; a t t he I nformat ion Centre
Disturb .
for Architecture, To wn P l a n n i n g and
Des i g n : Christian Lasserre, Paul
For t h e i r contribution to t h i s research
Li evevrouw and Savina van d e Put;
studio, as v i siting expert, critic or
arid at N A i P u b l i shers: Eelco vanWelie
lecturer, we wou l d l i ke totl1ank
and A nke Versteeg.
George B a i rd, Jan Bruggemans,
Xavier Cald eron, Flavia Coddou,
Eric Caryn, Xaveer De Geyter,
Mart i n e De Maeseneer, Stefan Decorte,
Bert d e M uynck, A l exander D ' H ooghe,
Gal:>ri e l Dorfmann, Kersten Geers,
Burton Hamfelt, D i etmar Leyk,
Reinoud Magosse, Gabriele Mast r i g l i ,
Freek Pe rsyn, Claud i o Q u e i roz,
Robert E. Somo I, Francis Strauven,
Dav i d Van Severe11 and E l i a Zenghel is.

F i l m reject
Robin Ramaekers
E x h i b i t i o n model
Made by M i stake ( D e lft)

berlage i nstitute

postgraduate laboratory of architecture

239
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A n n e-Fr ano
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Fran ce Ma rage
A rlet te Verkr
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Com m u n ity
Minis ter Fadi la
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M i n i ster Bert
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Dirk Van Rycke
g h e m, Hele na
Van stee/ ant,
Jan Lec onte
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Flem i s h Gov
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Marc e l Smet s,
Lind a Bou dry,
Tony Van Nuffe
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soc i a l, p o l i t i c a l , a n d cu l t u r ?t l d iff e rence - i s t h e c a p i t a l m a n ifestat i o n of E u rope i n

t h e form of a c i ty. A g a i n st t h e r h etoriq of E u rope as a n eutral ' mosa i c .of d iffere n c e s ' ,
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