The Duty of the Architect in Our Time

The Belgian chapter of INTBAU (a.k.a. La Table Ronde de l'Architecture) was founded in 2020 in Brussels, capital of the Kingdom of Belgium and the self-proclaimed capital of architectural modernism. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the municipal authorities struggled to accept that the city of Brussels, once a driving force of the 19th century industrial revolution alongside London and the unscrupulous ruler of the Congolese empire, was slipping into becoming a second-tier metropolis. They therefore undertook a rapid and brutal transformation of the capital: they bulldozed whole swathes of the medieval city centre to make way for towers of glass and steel, suspended motorways and wide, straight avenues reminiscent of modernist cities like Brasilia and Chicago. The protests of local residents and other advocates of cultural heritage fell on deaf ears; this forced modernisation became known the world over as ‘Bruxellisation’. 

In response to this tragic situation, the initial aim of our chapter was to return the architecture of Brussels to its inhabitants. At the request of neighbourhood associations concerned by proposals for intrusive or ugly buildings, we drew up counter-projects, for free, that were more closely aligned with the expectations of local residents. Our architecture was a form of protest, an architecture that was shaped from the ground up rather than imposed from above by distant authorities. 

We slowly came to two realisations. Firstly, the problem of modernist architecture was not confined to Brussels or to Belgium but constituted a worldwide scourge of dystopian proportions. Secondly, specific remedies for isolated instances are of no help to a problem of this scale. Our counter-projects were mere shots in the dark, unable to instigate enduring change within the architecture production system. Over time, we became increasingly convinced that the system needed to be reformed from within, and that the best way to do this would be to found a school. 

The compass and the mallet

At the end of the 19th century, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was frustrated by the sclerosis of the French School of Fine Arts which adhered to a tired and routine form of classical architecture. To address their grievances, he and his friend Émile Trélat founded the École Centrale d'Architecture with the goal of reconciling architecture (an art) with construction (a science) and of injecting fresh air into the curriculum by incorporating disciplines such as horticulture, landscaping, geology, political economy and history.

Architectural higher education today is in a deplorable state, much more so than was the teaching of the fine arts in the time of Viollet-le-Duc. In both cases, architecture has been ossified by dogma and confined to the endless reproduction of obsolete forms, from Claude Perrault's Colonnade of the Louvre to Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye. Ideology prevails over reasoning, the formalist approach takes precedence over knowledge of materials, and the computer has fully displaced traditional manual skills such as drawing. Today’s university-educated architect (bar a few courageous self-taught individuals) has become a software operator driven by the potential for quick profits and celebrity, a façade designer with no knowledge of materials beyond reinforced concrete, devoid of any historical knowledge and alienated – by a barrier of their own making – from the building trades from which their profession descends.

The paradox lies in the fact that architects, once heirs to skilled manual crafts, now reject the very trades that laid the foundations for their discipline. A survey of medieval history in search for the first architect reveals names of master masons, brave journeymen wandering from one cathedral to another, carpenters building timber-framed houses, and even a “doctor ès-pierres” (Doctor of stone), as it is inscribed on the delightful epitaph of Pierre de Montreuil, one of the greatest French master builders of the 13th century. The architect, in the contemporary sense, did not appear until the Renaissance, in the guise of the genius artists Brunelleschi, Leonardo and Alberti, who, having thoroughly mastered their science, simply drew up a design for the workmen to build according to the Maestro's instructions. Gradually thereafter, the architect gradually detached himself from the manual trades to become a true intellectual; he then appeared on the building site wearing white gloves, a sign that he no longer took part in dirty work, and with the tip of a stick he commanded the workers: ‘Par cy me le taille!’ (Old French – cut it this way!). 

Today, the architecture profession must be enjoined to renew itself through contact with craftsman, or else both architecture and craft will be lost forever. The architect is caught between the engineer, who throws out his calculations and builds his bridges and roadways with no regard for Art, and the artist, who willingly sacrifices firmitas and utilitas on the altar of venustas. He must recover the technical knowledge of the engineer while maintaining the ambition of the artist. But if he continues along the current path – that of digital design, reinforced concrete and, now, artificial intelligence – he is condemning himself to obsolescence, because his contribution will have become so insignificant that he can easily be replaced by an engineer or a machine.

stone carving exercise during the 2023 BSSAC

If architects take steps towards craftsmen and rediscover the virtues of stone, wood and earth, and if they go back to studying Tradition, then they will not only be able to reclaim craftsmanship from the margins  (the upkeep of heritage and luxury building sites), but also restore the prestige of architecture and – what would be a supreme blessing – stop the harming of Nature through excessive building. We deplore that building today means the gradual destruction of Nature. To those who claim that architecture can continue to squander vast quantities of industrial materials, this observation will seem outrageous, but to those who sense that architecture can no longer afford these scandalous orgies of concrete, glass and steel, and that it needs to adopt more reasonable mores, the vernacular science contained in the crafts will seem a salutary remedy.

The spring of the summer schools

While some choose to bury their heads in the sand when confronted with this catastrophic situation; others roll up their sleeves and get to work. Resolutely in the second category, many INTBAU chapters have decided to tackle the problem head on and, faced with the dereliction of official architectural education, have on their own initiative founded a multitude of summer schools. Spontaneous, original and daring, these summer schools are courageous and quasi-clandestine attempts to pierce the cloak with which university stifles the teaching of architecture. 

Our chapter, inspired by these fruitful precedents, in turn decided to found the ‘Belgian Summer School of Traditional Architecture’, which became the ‘Bruges Summer School of Architecture & Crafts’ when we left the bubbling cauldron of Brussels to settle in the wonderful city of Bruges, softened by history and respectful of its heritage. With its organic urban fabric, winding streets and august gables facing the street from which mighty masts protrude to hoist goods up into the attics, crossed by the cold water of the canals once crowded with boats, their holds full of goods from all around the world, Bruges is a provincial city open to the four winds, at once both cosmopolitan and deeply attached to the Flemish Gothic tradition.

What do we learn from Bruges? It teaches us humility in knowing that history plays tricks on mankind, its outcomes forever beyond our foresight. Though initially a poor town surrounded by wetlands, Bruges’ destiny was forever changed when a storm opened up a channel to the sea. Suddenly transformed into a commercial capital, its streets pulsating with frenzy, Bruges underwent a metamorphosis: from a city of wood, it became a city of stone and brick. But providence soon took back what it had given, and Bruges sank into stagnation and oblivion as its canals silted up. Decayed, defeated and disconsolate, it became ‘Bruges-the-Dead’, a haven for nostalgic souls and lovers of Gothic romanticism. Left impoverished and largely untouched, the city emerged from the 20th century as if from a time machine, dressed in a splendid gown of sculpted lace. Bruges is an invitation to humility: humility in the face of the sovereign splendour of the past, humility in remembering that all wealth is ephemeral, and humility in front of the extraordinary talents of the builders who shaped its architecture.

BSSAC 2025

In Bruges, our students – imbued with this sense of humility in the face of greatness – begin by meticulously measuring doors, windows, bays, bases, traceries, transoms, bonds of stone and bricks, so that they are slowly made aware of the proportions, rhythms and logic of Flemish Gothic architecture. Architecture is a matter of detail: the parts dictate the whole, the layout of a façade is determined by the dimensions of a single brick. One must study the building in detail to understand, step by step, the path that the builder has followed. What is the point of producing a drawing of a façade, even if it is perfectly accurate, if you don't know why the architect placed the gable facing the street, why the latter is punctuated by steps, why the base is made of hard stone when the rest of the building is made of soft stone, why the architect split the façade with a frieze of arches and why he placed an arch above each window? Our students can make pretty perspective drawings, but they won't be architects until they understand that construction – what's hidden in the depth of the wall – is at least as important as what is before their eyes. Once they have grasped this fundamental lesson, they will become consistent builders who, faced with a blank sheet of paper, will first ask themselves what programme, what materials and what climate they are working with rather than blindly tracing shapes from who-knows-what temple in Ephesus or Agrigento, or who-knows-what modern monument. 

Is that enough? Of course not. What do a few weeks – no matter how intensive – represent in a year? Our summer schools are far too short, far too small and far too paltry to represent a real alternative to a university degree course. While a handful of students manage – thanks to their exceptional fortitude – to leave university to train on their own, most have to grit their teeth and see their studies through to the end in order to earn the precious degree. This degree is now the last line of defence for architecture faculties that are at the end of their tether. It is for this degree, and not out from desire, that tens of thousands of students across Europe are inflicting on themselves, at the time of writing, at least five years of a soporific course punctuated by humiliating juries that we call ‘architectural studies’. If it ceased to exist, the university would immediately lose its precious authority and we would see young people flocking to our small schools by the hundreds and thousands. If there is one thing that our experience has taught us it is the invincible desire for action among young people. This desire is suppressed because universities offer only degraded, disguised or unethical avenues of expression. But offer young people the means to align their actions with their aspirations and the works of a good and honest art will flourish everywhere, free and popular, a resurrection.

Now, what should be done? 

Towards a permanent school of architecture 

Architecture is reformed by schools. The Beaux-Arts gave Europe a taste of Athens and Rome, the Saint-Luc workshops in Belgium dusted off the Gothic, while the Bauhaus converted Germany to modernism. That is why all our efforts are now focused on founding a permanent school of traditional architecture in continental Europe. The aim of this school would not be to promote one style against another, but one principle: that of reasoned architecture. What does this mean? It is an architecture free of dogma, whether it is the verses of Le Corbusier's Charter of Athens or the canon of Vignole, an architecture that, freed from the pursuit of ‘style’, is not afraid to dwell on practical things: the programme, the inhabitants, the materials, the geological subsoil, the heat of the climate, the vigour of the sun, etc. It is an architecture that remembers that it is first and foremost a τέχνη, a science, and that it is only when it has arranged its elements logically, when the form is stripped of the superfluous and maintains a relationship of correspondence with the structure, and when the architect, finally, has corrected his work with care and meticulousness, that the eye, then, takes pleasure in recognising in this astute, just and reasoned construction, the principle of Beauty. For what pleases the eye first pleases Reason.

The conditions for our ambition to succeed and for such a school to see the light of day are simple to meet: we need to bring together under one roof both the teaching of design and of construction. Architecture is no longer an art, wrote Viollet-le-Duc prophetically, if design and the means of execution are separated. But bring together in one person the draughtsman and the builder, and you will obtain the true Architect, the complete artist. In other words : get the architect – who is currently prostrate behind his computer or, more rarely, behind his drawing paper – out of his office and take him to a building site to see how to build a solid wall out of rubble stone, bring him into contact with the carpenter who will tell him about the properties of wood, and the mason who knows how to lay appropriate foundations. And soon you will realise that bringing together the architect and the craftsman, the draughtsman and the builder, raises the esteem in which they hold each other, gradually bridges the gap that has opened up between theory and practice, and restores to the architect the knowledge that he lacks today and which is fundamental if we are to succeed in making architecture more humane, more beautiful and more respectful of Nature : the noble, age-old sciences of carpentry, masonry, stone stereotomy, roofing, ironwork, plastering and so on. In short: the noble trades of craftsmanship.

stereotomy of stone - BSSAC 2025

Originally, the architect was the person who gave physical shape to a culture and to the will of a people. He reified and embodied the collective imagination. He manipulated the symbols that conveyed the sacred. Even today, he gives concrete expression to the spiritual aspirations of an era. So, in addition to the rigorous notions of construction we have just emphasised, architects need to be equipped with a broad historical culture and accustomed to reasoning. This is why history and philosophy are indispensable complements to the training of good practitioners. Architects are at the service of the Polis. They need the empathy and humility that come from philosophical practice and knowledge of the past. The wise need no laws: the Architect, reformed in this way to the fullness of his abilities, will do what is right on his own initiative, without the State or the administration having to constantly remind him of it under the sting of constraint. In this way, and only in this way, through the instruction of architects who are as well versed in practice as in theory, erudites concerned not to abuse the bounties of Nature, can we hope to redress the tragic fate of architectural modernity.

To all the kind souls who recognise the relevance of the observations we have just made and the programme we have just drawn up, we ask you to join us in our efforts to found, on this European soil that has seen the genius of architecture flourish, havens of study, peace and reconciliation.

This article was originally published in the INTBAU 25th anniversary publication