Cité-Jardin Kapelleveld: Avant Garde housing in shades of grey

The garden village Kapelleveld at Woluwe-Saint-Lambert near Brussels is an example of a modernist interpretation of the garden city model, here translated into a garden suburb or suburban garden village. The housing is mostly modernist, with a small section in a traditionalist style. The housing with the flat roofs and the dark roof trim is similar to that seen in La CitéModerne, another modernist garden village near Brussels.

Of the three tree-lined avenues two remain. The central avenue has a tram and the southern avenue has a garden-like central reservation. The northern avenue was never replanted after WW2. Cars and parking now dominate the edges. As this avenue was intended as a major thoroughfare the dimensions can handle present-day traffic.

In the 1950s some blocks of terraced housing were added along the Avenue Albert Dumont. This housing by Paul Posno (right) is similar in size to the original housing (left), but much less detailed. Also the block is treated less sculptural and the proportions are much less harmonious -the blocks are evidently not designed with asset of harmonious proportions in mind. The Avenue Albert Dumont was named after an architect of French origin who is well known for designing many villas and cottages, especially on the Belgian coast. He was also one of the promotors of the Garden City Movement in Belgium.

The original housing was arranged along kinged streets that ran off the avenues at a right angle. The side walls form the entrances to the residential streets. This way of separating street along function is common in New Objectivity housing in the Benelux and Germany.

The kinked street marries the ideal of short view creating a sense of place which fits nicely with Sitte-esque design theory and the Unwinesque elaboration of it. Apart from this the garden village at Kappelleveld has no typical features of the Garden City Movement aesthetic.

The blocks of terraced housing are sculptural compositions with a strong cubist aesthetic. The short chimneys at the corners of the main blocks are used in a decorative way to break the flatness of the roofline which is emphasised by the black wooden trim. The staggering of the building line is very effective and creates a pleasant flow along the street.

Another type is basically a modernist semidetached house with protruding sections at the corners, reminiscent of standing bays. In places this type has been linked to form row housing (left). The design plays with verticality and horizontality with the narrow high windows at either end and low and wide windows in the middle.

The standard type with the low chimneys all have rendered facades. The colour can vary from off white, via light grey (on the left) to dark grey (on the right at the front). The wooden trim is always painted black to unify the sculptural blocks in the streetscape.

All housing has a front garden. In true garden village style these gardens were edged by a hedge. Here privet was used. All gardens were made uniform by using a similar green edge. Sadly the hedges have bene removed in places, or have bene replaced by hedges made from a different plant species (mostly beech and box). At the end of the streets the orange clay tile roofs of the intermediate section are just visible.

The southwestern section of the garden village was designed in a mixed style with pitched roofs covered in clay tiles above cubist blocks. The result is an Avant Garde marriage of the traditional and the modern. All the facades are rendered, with wooden trim in black and white. The chimneys are practical and not used as a decorative device. The bays and dormers are used in that way however.

The intermediate housing has flat dormers with a protruding roof directly above the window frames. Al woodwork of the doors and windows is painted white, as well as the underside of the eaves (right). The front of the box gutter is painted black. The awnings above the front doors are treated similarly.  

The contrast between these two sections is remarkable. This makes that the garden village Kapelleveld is defined as three neighbourhoods by the architectural expression of the buildings. The central core is modernist, sculptural and cubist, the southwestern section is Avant Garde mix of traditional and modern and the southeastern section is traditionalist with a sculptural treatment of the facades in brick.     

Cité-Jardin Kapelleveld: a modernist interpretation of a garden village

On the rural outskirts of Brussels several small villages were to be found. Sometime in the 11^th century the wood around the river Woluwe was cut down on the instigation of Park Abbey in Louvain and was administered by the Benedictine Abbey at Vorst (Forest). In the twelfth century the area was spilt into two parishes Woluwe-Saint Pierre and Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, each named after the respective patron saint (Peter and Lambert). The villages were located on the edge of  a narrow river valley at the foot of a large fertile plateau, hence the French name Montagne aux Sols (mount of the fertile soil). The Dutch name Kapelleveld relates to the nearby Chapel of Our Dear Lady of Sorrows (Maria Dolorosa) that was in part funded by a tithe of these fields.

After WW1 the housing need in Belgium peaked and the National Society for Cheap Housing and Dwellings (Nationale Maatschappij voor Goedkope Woningen en Woonvertrekken) was founded in 1920. This national building promotor realised that the disused fields near Wolume-Saint-Lambert were ideal for the realisation of a garden city inspired suburban development. So in 1922 the Cooperative Society ‘La Cité-Jardin du Kapelleveld’ was founded with the aim to build affordable housing near Brussels. The NMGWW provided government-backed low rate loans to local building coops.

The building coop employed Louis Van der Swaelmen to draw the plans for this low-density suburban development. He retained the height differences of the original terrain and designed a housing district as a fan of tree-lined streets interconnected by side streets and two separate features (am undulating avenue and a triangular garden square) at the southern edges of the oddly shaped site. The layout of streets has great affinity with garden design of the time. 

The garden village designed by Van der Swaelmen has a rather odd layout which is a mix of formal radiating fan of streets with kinked and curved streets connecting to these. His original design included  two closes (c) that were never built, a school (s) a church (+), a football stadium (fs), a tennis club (tc) and football pitches (fp). The circles between the gardens were designed as playgrounds. The easternmost section was executed in a different style of architecture with pitched roofs and brick facades (yellow outline). The rest was executed in a modernist style with flat roofs or pitched roofs with clay tiles (orange outline).

The housing is placed rationally along the kinked side streets. The three radial streets of the fan all serve as thoroughfares. Thus the plan has affinity with New Objectivity. This can also be said of the housing in most of the development which is designed in a sculptural cubist modernist idiom. The eastern section, however, has buildings in a traditionalist vernacular idiom. Thus the whole feels like a compromise -much like Tuindorp Watergraafsmeer near Amsterdam- especially with the expansion east of the Ideaallaan (Avenue de l‘Idéal) after WW2 with piecemeal sections of rather random streets lined by brick-built semidetached and terraced housing and brick-clad low-rise apartment blocks.

Building density is low compared to the Brussels average. Great attention has been paid to planting trees and providing residents with a front garden and an ample back garden. Leisure facilities were also incorporated in the plan with tennis courts, a football stadium with some practice pitches and several playgrounds. Several architect (Antoine Pompe, Huibrecht Hoste, Jean-Francois Houben and Paul Rubbers) collaborated in the design of over 400 houses in 19 different types. Ten houses were equipped with a shop room at the front. All housing was built between 1922 and 1926. The suburb was designed as an independent social entity with communal spaces such as a library, shops, community hall, sports facilities, office for the cooperative, school and church. The last two wouldn’t be built until later. In the Arthur André Street a station on the Brussels-Tervuren railway line was opened. The coop employed Paul Posno to design the 1951-71 expansion. Also some blocks were added as infill. In 1968-69 some streets were extended southwards and some housing was added.

The changes and later additions have changed the garden village around the edges. This makes the whole even more of a compromise than originally intended. Along the Avenue Albert Dumont blocks were added along the street. The large gardens on the south-eastern side were developed with terraced housing. A church was built in stead of the school and where a church was envisaged a school would be erected. The sports facilities have been altered with some buildings built on the edges (a school and a centre for handicapped children). The additions have little spatial and architectural merit and are rather incidental.

Kapelleveld is one of the garden villages (or Tuinwijken / Cités-Jardin) that were built around Brussels. The houses were constructed with cinderblocks (or breeze blocks), a light-weight concrete construction element made up of a mixture of ash, sand, water and cement. The facades are rendered with a wide trim in wood at the top. The colour of the outer walls varies from an off-white via light grey to dark grey. As an Avant Garde enclave the housing of Kapelleveld is still recognisable in the urban chaos that is Greater Brussels. Although inspired by the Garden City Movement, this suburban enclave has none of the Sitte-esque features of German and Dutch garden villages, nor any of the Unwinesque features characteristic of British examples. It is basically a modernist interpretation of the type.

Gartenstadt Hellerau: an anti-urban idyll near Dresden

This early garden village was built between 1909 and 1933 as the first official settlement supported by the German Garden City Society. Originally set up as a progressive community it is still a much sought-after place of residence within easy reach of Dresden by tram.

On the old road between Dresden and Moritzburg the old buildings of the German Werkstätten suddenly come into view as the greenery open up in a vista. This factory comprises of a series of buildings designed as one complex. Within several small manufactures of furniture and artisanal workshops found space. The whole was set up as a collective with each skilled worker working together and exchanging ideas when needed. The idealism that created this complex is still evident today in the photovoltaic panels on the roof.

At the heart of the complex still lies a large cobbled courtyard. Furniture production is now in a modern factory across the road; the old workshops are now leased to artists and small creative businesses.

The Deutscher Werkstätten were the raison d’être for a new garden village satellite of Dresden to be developed in this location. The buildings are designed in a vernacular style referencing farm buildings, but at the same time creating a complex that is recognisably not agricultural. The design with many connected volumes creates the sensation of a much smaller operation than this complex actually housed.

Some of the houses in the western section were built in wood, also referencing vernacular German architecture. Split logs are used to great effect in cladding panels. The window frames and wooden shutters contrast nicely both in texture and colour. Although each house was built to the same basic plan, each dwelling has an individual appeal through the detailing and the use of colour.

In most places the houses are mixed with several types creating a varied streetscape. Different types of cladding, different roof pitches and different paint colours all ad to the diversity along the streets. Where possible the original woodland was retained, as the aim was to reconnect residents with nature.

There is a mix of buildings in wood and in brick with rendered walls. All houses are set in ample gardens. Some houses are quite close to the street -where there are remnants of the woodland on the slope- others are set back further to create a greener streetscape with large front gardens.

In some sections all the houses are built in brick with rendered walls. The render is always a shade of soft yellow or cream. This gives the whole a sense of unity. The housing itself is individual and was designed in a vernacular idiom.

Around a natural well an ornamental pond was built to provides a natural focal point in this section of Hellerau. A pond near the top of the slope feels rather artificial though. From the pond one can glimpse the buildings around. This again reinforces that sense of nature being omnipresent in Hellerau.

The streets in the primary section near the Werkstätten are lined with terraced housing. This is the norm in German garden villages and in sharp contrast to the preference for cottages and linked semidetached properties in short rows advocated by English architects of the Garden City Movement. The long rows create an image similar to German village streets. Note that the houses for workers lack a front garden.

Most streets in Hellerau were given a gentle curve so the end could never be seen from the start of the street. Everywhere the architects favoured rhythm over variety in type. So often the houses along a street are all similar, sometimes with variations in the detailing.

In most streets the principles of urban planning by artistic means along the lines of Camillo Sitte are put into practice. The building line is given subtle variations, creating room for small front garden along a section of a long street. Also a green verge planted with trees is part of the layout of some residential streets. The buildings on each street were designed by one of a group of architects. The buildings al have a certain individuality, but also create a sense of unity through a conscious use of vernacular design features.

The street leading up to the central Market Square shows all of the design features of Sitte-esque design and planning. The basic layout is varies little, but the dwellings are detailed with a variation in roof height, roof shape, window treatment. Also shifts in building line are used to create sections along the street creating visual interest and a more varied sensation of space and place.

The central square is still used for an open air market once a week. It is also used for community gatherings and a festival. For large crowds, however, the Festival Hall was built. The buildings around the market are higher than those in the residential streets and contain shops on the ground floor and apartments above. The buildings are 4 storeys with additional bedrooms up in the attic space.

The bakery is one of the amenities that were concentrated around the central public space. This building with soft ochre render and blue shutters, windows and doors differs only slightly from the residential buildings (these have mostly green shutters and doors). The design aesthetic is again vernacular in character. A covered walk with arches is a feature imported from Italy into Germany in the late medieval period. It is used to great effect here, but also has a practical reason in the rainy climate.

Further up the slope from the central square large detached and semidetached properties line the short streets. The design is in keeping with the blocks around the market square and less individualistic than the villas in the western section.

The streets leading towards the third section -the section north of the thoroughfare that was planned as part of this garden village- all have low village-like buildings in long terraces. In some places (semi)detached houses are used on corners to create visual interest. All houses have wooden window shutters and where there are front gardens the garden fence was part of the total design.

Where streets meet the corners are given extra emphasis by rotating the corner block 45 degrees. Also the use of variable roof shapes is very clear on this corner. Sections with gable ends break up the roof surface and emphasise the corners of each block. Where this is a semidetached block of 2 the gable ends are adjacent; in short terraces the gable ends are further apart.

The same aesthetic is carried through north of the thoroughfare with curved streets and white fences edging the small front gardens. The houses have the same gable ends on each corner dwelling in the row.

Some streets in the northern section are rather straight with a kink at either end. The ends of the long terraces protrude to emphasise the beginning and end of the street. Gable end again are used to create rhythm and divide the long rows up into sections.

The buildings have vernacular details in the design. Short porches protrude from the main mass of the row of houses. Each porch has a short tiled roof. All windows have window shutters. The little railing along the gutter is typical for German buildings in areas with many trees and heavy snowfall. Some building have a side entrance. Here one with a porch that backs onto a neighbouring building with a building line that is not set back.

The Festspielhaus (Festival Thetre) was bult in 1911 on the edge of Hellerau. It is built as a formal ensemble with a central theatre building behind a large cobbles square. The entrance on the other side is flanked by two low buildings that housed workshops, storage and a small café. The theatre was an important centre for experimental theatre and expressive dance prior to 1933. A restauration was started in 2006. The lower galleries flanking the entrance still need some work done, but the central building has been brought back to life.