This beautiful Modernist style mansion, designed in 1928 by Stanislas Jasinski (in collaboration with Henry Van de Velde), for the industrialist Georges Cohen is located at Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 60 in Brussels.
When suddenly, at the beginning of 2020, Covid made us prisoners at home and we did not know the duration of this confinement, the most optimistic of creatives saw this as an opportunity.
This is the case of three architects, Véronique Boone, Benoit Moritz and Maurizio Cohen, professors at La Cambre-Horta Faculté d’Architecture – ULB. They took advantage of this suspended time to improve their knowledge of the Brussels built landscape after the “Great War”. At a distance from each other, helped by Google Street and their rich documentation, they explored the city’s streets, avenues and boulevards on shared screen, refining their knowledge, analyzing the remarkable and representative architecture.
The idea thus came to them to create, as a joint project, a collection of works, treating in a monographic way, the work of architects whose work is less known to the general public but who would benefit from being so. This series is called “Architects’ Journey”.
The authors specify: “The first volume of the series proposes to follow the itinerary of Stanislas Jasinski (1901–1978), from the 1920s to 1970. He is the author of numerous projects, carried out mainly in the Brussels Region. His work consists of a reinterpretation of the theme of the apartment building as a typology of the evolution of the city. The majority of his production is preserved and remains visible in public areas. In addition to his architectural production, Jasinski left us numerous essential articles and texts, testifying to his constant commitment, throughout his career, to the debate on architecture and urban planning. The journey of Stanislas Jasinski undoubtedly deserves to be discovered and appreciated”.
Built in 1955 on Avenue Brugmann , the Green Dale residence, remarkable for the curved shape of its terrace.
Proof of his modernity and his foresight, Stanislas Jasinski, interviewed by the magazine BATIR N°49, published in December 1936, said this:
“Generally speaking, we live happier in an apartment. Its comfort being far superior to that of the bourgeois house, all things considered, the savings it allows to be made are in proportion to the improvements made to its construction and its layout. More and more, household chores are accomplished automatically. Electrical pipes and wires are discreet servants, ready for action, taking up little space. Heat, light, artificial cooling, supply or evacuation of fluids, are produced or carried out by means of simple, not very dirty manipulations; nor tiring. Without a servant, or with the help of a housekeeper who is busy for a few hours, an apartment can be kept in excellent condition of maintenance and hygiene. However, we know that the perfect maintenance of an old system house cannot be ensured without great expense.”
Built by Jasinski, the Eden Green residence, avenue de l’Observatoire in Uccle, is an apartment building inaugurated in 1968.
Stanislas Jasinski. Journey of Architects is a must-read book to discover, analyze and understand the evolution of this architect and his numerous and remarkable achievements in Brussels.
Stanislas Jasinski. Architects’ Journeys
By Véronique Boone, Benoit Moritz and Maurizio Cohen
Publisher: Mercatorfonds – http://www.fondsmercator.be
144 p. / 155 ill. / 24 x 17 cm / Softcover / 35€ / EN / NL / FR /
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