Louvain-la-Neuve; a new town that was begun in 1972 on a plateau of farmland, in French-speaking Walloonia, just south of Brussels, wears the trauma of its creation well. This neo-medieval settlement is inadvertently the result — a literal pièce de resistance — of a political struggle by the Flemish majority to overturn Belgium’s post-war status quo. While Paris in 1968 was full of the French rebelling, like Marlon Brando’s character in The Wild One, against anything going, Dutch-speaking Belgians protested for an end to Francophone dominance in their country. Probably their most successful drive was to remove French as the dominant language at the nation’s most prestigious university in Leuven and when they were successful in doing so, a new university was needed.
'It is funny to think of conservative Francophones strolling around Cumbernauld, a robust new town between Glasgow and Edinburgh, on a fact-finding mission and deciding, probably rightly, that its now desolate castle-like megastructure on top of a hill was not the way to go'
The Catholic and generally right-wing French speaking rump expelled from Leuven clearly still had some clout and wanting their university to be autonomous, demanded a separate new town. It is funny to think of conservative Francophones strolling around Cumbernauld, a robust new town between Glasgow and Edinburgh, on a fact-finding mission and deciding, probably rightly, that its now desolate castle-like megastructure on top of a hill was not the way to go. Their determination to instead rival the original town of Leuven with pedestrianised streetscapes has to be commended, particularly given the proximity of the new plot to that well-known site of thwarted ambition: Waterloo. More auspiciously however, Louvain-la-Neuve was very close to the railhead of a line from Brussels from which a spur was built in 1975.
André Jacqmain's Library of Science at Louvain-la-Neuve: 'A textured version of high Modernism'
The masterplan was designed by three figures: Raymond Lemaire, Jean-Pierre Blondel, and Pierre Laconte. Of this group, Lemaire, an art historian, had the highest profile before work began, although this was not in planning. A famous art historian, he was the lead author of the Venice Charter: a framework for the conservation and restoration of historic buildings which still guides professionals around the world. For the planner Laconte, however, it was the single great act of his life’s work and he spent the rest of his life dining out on it on various non-governmental bodies, representing Belgium at the Kyoto Conference of Parties on Climate Change. Blondel was an architect of technically daring Modernist buildings, including a trio of astonishing pavilions at the 1958 Brussels World’s fair that are sadly no longer around.
This mix of architectural verve, married with a respect for ecclesiastical and educational forms and a certain social conservatism, helped inform the unique urban plan of Louvain-la-Neuve. It also accounts for its unique, almost operatic architectural style. The town centre is a mix of modern and medieval. The commercial centre of the town, although pedestrianised, sits on top of a massive concrete plinth beneath which lies a vast subterranean parking lot with 6,000 spaces. (Even today this zone lacks signage, meaning newcomers to the town are wont to lose their cars in the cavernous space.) Around the commercial centre, up into the elevated section of the town run a series of paths off which is placed many of the wonderful student residences, bespoke buildings designed by individual architects.
The centre of Louvain-la-Neuve, under which is a giant car park.
The building of the town makes the particular origins of the new town legible. The American architect Louis Kahn was invited to design the University Halls, modelled on the original Leuven versions, albeit with a railway station in the basement and a commercial area on the ground floor. Khan’s later cosmic Brutalism, rather than his earlier academic Modernism, was seen as the perfect blend of modernity and spiritual values for the catholic university. Kahn, though, declined as he was struggling to complete his serene parliament complex in Bangladesh, recommending his student Yves Lepère, who turned in a very good impression of a Kahn; all arches and suspended façades helping dissolve the austere rhetoric of 20th century corporate Modernism with more intimate, primal geometries.
The rest of the architecture inhabits an uneasy marriage of tradition and modernity with some hits and some misses. André Jacqmain's Library of Science is a textured version of high Modernism. The entrance stairs and balconies, in which the shuttering from the concrete pour is highly visible, are pure university theatre; made for posing from, book in hand. The Church of St. Francis of Assisi, with its distinctly Middle Earth looking bell tower, was consecrated by Pope John Paul II on his visit to Louvain-la-Neuve in 1985; a site which now seems more emblematic of his papacy than many others closer to Rome. Louvain-la-Neuve is a place in which the traditions of the church could be expressed in new ways; locating the church in the daily woes of humanity following the Second Vatican Council in 1965.
The centre of the town remains fully pedestrianised.
It is hard to imagine today, but a decade into the life of Louvain-la-Neuve, it was deemed a failure as the financial climate slowed its build out (a common problem in all new towns which always face different economic climates during their long, early formation). 10,000 students live in the town, although that number triples during the day. The student housing has plenty of character: porthole windows and crazily pitched roofs abound. It is purpose built for sharing though and subsidised down to around €300 a month.
Of course the desire to make it in the immediate term a truly mixed settlement (academic and non-academic) was never really viable. However, Louvain looks and feels like a place. One only has to look at the newer section across the main road which is an academic-campus-as-business-park to understand the quality of what Louvain-le-Neuve began with and to be fair this is what has happened in the suburbs of towns that are home to venerable institutions such as Cambridge in the UK. This singular new town may yet reach the venerable age of the original from whence it was grafted.