par Bulckaen, Laurens 
;Devos, Rika
Référence VIIth international congress on construction history(VII: July 12-July16 2021: Lisbon), Proceedings of the VIIth international congress on construction history, CRC Press/Balkema, Leiden, Vol. 1, Ed. 1, page (538-545)
Publication Publié, 2021
;Devos, Rika Référence VIIth international congress on construction history(VII: July 12-July16 2021: Lisbon), Proceedings of the VIIth international congress on construction history, CRC Press/Balkema, Leiden, Vol. 1, Ed. 1, page (538-545)
Publication Publié, 2021
Publication dans des actes
| Résumé : | The Booktower complex, the central library of Ghent University (1933-1947), is a celebrated masterpiece of architect Henry van de Velde. In addition, the tower also counts as one of the first European towers in rein-forced concrete, next to several other noteworthy structural and technical achievements. This paper revisits the process of designing and building the Booktower, evaluating the architect’s collaborations with engi-neers like Gustave Magnel and Jean-Norbert Cloquet, but also the contributions of skilled contractors like Gillion and Van Pottelbergh, specialists in the use of reinforced concrete. This paper scrutinizes the collabo-rations in the design team by assessing contracts, plans, correspondence and other archival materials. The re-search allows to develop a rich perspective on the respective roles of architect, engineers and contractors, demonstrating how their collaboration was largely conditioned by the university and how each came up with state-of-the art methods to meet the challenges of the project. |
