(b Brussels, 21 Aug 1884; d Brussels, 21 April 1963). Belgian architect, urban planner and teacher. He graduated from the Université Libre in Brussels and then enrolled at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts (1904). Rebelling against teaching he considered atrophied, he left the Académie without completing his studies and worked for a period with Alban Chambon, Jean-Baptiste Dewin (1873–1948) and Victor Horta. During World War I he took refuge in England where he participated in the demonstrations organized in London in 1915 by the International Garden Cities and Town Planning Association. Strongly influenced by English architecture, he became a firm advocate of Raymond Unwin’s ideas and was involved in the development of the first garden cities in Belgium. After returning to Brussels he worked with Raphaël Verwilghen at the Office des Régions Dévastées and in 1921 he began a long period of collaboration with Louis Van der Swaelmen on the construction of the garden cities Le Logis and Floréal at Watermael-Boitsfort, Brussels. At the same time he also built the Hainaut children’s home (1923–6) at Bredene and some villas (1924–6), including the Marcel Wolfers-Petrucci mansion in Brussels, that were influenced by Dutch architecture. Later works included the theatre for the Exposition Universelle et Internationale (1935), Brussels; participation with Verwilghen and Henry Van de Velde in the design of the Belgian pavilion at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937), Paris; blocks of flats in Brussels, such as the Résidence Léopold (1934–37; with Verwilghen); and some industrial buildings. He taught architecture (1929–47) and then urban planning at the Institut Supérieur des Arts Décoratifs de la Cambre in Brussels, where Van der Swaelmen and Verwilghen had also taught.

• Eggericx, Jean-Jules
  • collaboration
    • Belgium, §II, 5: Architecture, after c 1890
    • François, Lucien
    • Van der Swaelmen, Louis
    • Verwilghen, Raphaël