Research Bart Tritsmans

Abstract

This research project investigates the formative role of commercial spaces – e.g. design fairs, retail stores, and galleries – in the development of interior architecture in postwar Belgium (1946–1980). The project aims to examine to what extent these venues operated as sites of experimentation, knowledge exchange, image production, and cultural interaction, and it explores whether they facilitated the emergence and maintenance of professional networks within the discipline of interior architecture. By analysing the interplay between commercial actors and professional networks and practices, the study wants to contribute to understanding how interior architecture was shaped as a discipline during this period. Despite the growing scholarly attention for education, practice, and theoretical discourse in interior architecture, the influence of commercial actors and places remains underexplored. This project addresses that lacuna by foregrounding the trans¬disciplinary nature of the interior and uncovering overlooked actors and narratives. A network analysis, a mapping of new archival material, a discourse analysis and an oral history project will provide new insights in the history of interior architecture. In doing so, this project will contribute to a more comprehensive historiography of interior architecture and will expand the scope of inquiry into its cultural and professional foundations.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Tritsmans Bart

Research team(s)

• Architecture + Interior

Funding

• BOF

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

'White Elephants' is how conventional post-war hospitals were critically qualified in the 1960s. Critics lamented that the idea of the hospital as a healing environment had been replaced by that of a 'cleansing machine', echoing post-war modernist ideals of hygiene, rational management, efficiency, and mechanical production. As a reaction, architects and interior architects (together with commissioners and medical specialists) took initiatives to 'humanise' the hospital. It resulted in innovative interior and architectural concepts that engaged with the psychological, symbolic and social dimensions of hospital environments. In this research a connection is made between the past and the present of Belgian hospital buildings designed and developed with a human-centred vision in the period of the 1960s-1980s, resulting in a twofold aim. The aim of the project is to read - document and analyse - the architectural and interior concepts and to reread - gain profound insight into - present day uses and experiences of these buildings by patients, visitors and staff to discuss their value for contemporary hospital design. By combining a historic and an ethnographic analysis of both Flemish, Brussels and Walloon cases, the research will a) highlight this innovative period in Belgian architectural history; b) document and analyse the architectural and interior concepts developed in the past and c) discuss the value of these concepts for contemporary hospital design.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Annemans Margo
• Co-promoter: Tritsmans Bart

Research team(s)

• Architecture + Interior

Funding

• FWO

Project type(s)

• Research Project