House as a Relational Potential for Home. The Case of Isolated Modernist Collective Housing in Brussels

Ledent, Gérald [UCL] Masson, Olivier [UCL]

The core of dwelling lies in the relationships of the human subject with others. It overwhelms largely matters such as style, form or aesthetics. It is thus primarily a social issue. In order to accommodate and sustain those relationships, man generates a series of artifacts that can be defined as house. Additionally, house is complemented by the idea of home, embodying the ineffable and subjective qualities of those relationships. Together, house and home form an indissoluble whole within the concept of dwelling. Furthermore, dwelling, as the combination of house and home, is an intricate product of cultural models -habitus - that evolve slowly. While those habitus are cultural by essence, we believe they are the translation of fundamental infra-cultural anthropological operations. Those fundamental operations are shared through mankind and are the necessary and sufficient conditions for any human subject to dwell, that is, to stand on Earth among others. From an architectural point of view, the concept of relational potential seems essential in order to expose those basic anthropological operations. Relational potential is understood as the specific qualities of an artifact - house - to foster home values. The case of modernist detached collective housing in post-war Brussels is explored in the light of their relational potentials. A comparison is drawn through the study of drawings of some thirty projects carefully chosen in the public and private sectors. While the chosen projects are built within the same period of time (1945-1980), their qualities are also put into perspective by former types of housing in Brussels. Two physical structures defining housing are analyzed through this comparison. The first one operates outwards, assessing the physical definition of housing from the perspective of its relation with the exterior. It investigates key issues such as façade depth, orientation and appearance. It also stresses on the diametrically opposed significances of individual and collective façades. The second investigation questions housing interiors and the potential interactions that are physically made (im)possible. An analysis of floor plan compositions and apartment layouts value the necessary questions of intimacy and privacy. Questions such as how space allows receiving guests, furnishing and retiring to one's own corner are at stake in this second analysis. Through this analysis, the revealed relational potential of housing allows one with a better understanding of the social dwelling interactions they cater for. Within the studied artifacts, the primal physical means is the physical isolation of a territory. This separation generates a distinctive domain - a place - for the human subject. In doing so, architecture allows the subject to ignore or prescind others. Once this primal limit has established a sense of place, relational potentials accommodate three social operations that help qualifying this place. The first one is articulation. It allows inhabitants to regulate their relationships with others. The second one is appropriation. It allows inhabitants to master the space which they have been allotted. Thirdly, representation accounts for the image that housing bestows on its inhabitants. Through the study of artifacts, relational potentials permit an understanding of the social actions enabled by housing. Yet, one should not forget that those social actions ought to be tested by the experience of the inhabitants themselves. Nevertheless, relational potentials help understanding which features are essential and operative for house to overcome its plain meaning of shelter and become dwelling.