Architects Journeys #3: Antoine Pompe

This volume devoted to Antoine Pompe (1873-1980) rediscovers the work and original struggles of a figure who was both central to and independent of the birth of modernist architecture in Belgium. On the eve of the First World War, his first independent project, Dr Van Neck's clinic in Saint-Gilles (1910), stood out as one of the most innovative Belgian buildings of its time. For fifteen years, he participated in and set the standard for most of the avant-garde architectural movements, particularly the Belgian garden city movement.

A reputed technician, concerned with an economical practice with sober and rational forms, he nevertheless refused to renounce the emotional and sensual dimension of buildings and distanced himself from the exclusively purist orientation taken by the modern movement. He went on to develop his own highly demanding 'architecture of reason and feeling', which was rediscovered in the late 1960s by a generation questioning the foundations and limits of modernity. Most of his work, mainly devoted to housing, is located in and around the Brussels region, where some of it enjoys protected status.

Parcours d'architectes is a series of books on Brussels architecture, focusing on the work of architects who left their mark on the city's built landscape after the First World War. The series aims to highlight architects whose work is less well known to the general public, but who deserve to be, given the intimate relationship between their work and Brussels. Each volume highlights a unique career path, both literally and figuratively, revealing the built heritage as well as little-known and little-studied facets of Brussels' urban history.