XX. századi műemlékek és védelmük (A 26. Egri Nyári Egyetem előadásai 1996 Eger, 1996)

Előadások: - Suzanne van Aerschot-van Haeverbeeck: Recording and protecting the architectural heritage of the twentieth century in Belgium and especially in Flanders

The ,,classical" typological order adopted in this type of provisional lists for inside use, the chronological limit of the 18th century — except for statues in public squares etc. — have to be seen in the general approach of the time; monument conservation problems were still considered as a task for a happy few of careful specialists necessitating a 100 years in between for forging a correct opinion and true evaluation for art and architecture. In this quite ,,detached" atmosphere the demolition has to be situated of Horta buildings in Brussels, as the ,,

Hôtel Aubecq" (from 1900) in 1949 and the „Maison du Peuple" (from 1896—9) in 1964. Another Art Nouveau house, which architect E. Blérot built for himself was pulled down in 1962. Actually architects and not conservators protested against this and tried to save the buildings, starting and started even with an international press campaign. At about the same time, the interest in art Nouveau, considered as the starting point for the Modern Movement, increased, partly thanks to some well-known publications. In his

,,Architecture. Nineteenth and twentieth centuries" (1958), Henry Russell Hitchcock dedicated chapter 16 (p. 281—291) to Victor Horta: The beginning of Art Nouveau, reproducing the groundplan of the already disappeared Hotel Aubecq (1900) on p. 290, and pictures of the Tassel House (1892—3), the Solvay House (1895—1900), the later burned down Department Store Innovation (1901) and the

, classical view" of the interior of the Maison du Peuple (1896—9), (Pl. 130—132). In chapter 4. Art Nouveau (p. 90—117) of the revised and partly rewritten edition of the „Pionneers of the Modern Design", (1960), N. Pevsner dwells on Horta's work, his „fellow-fighter" in Belgium Henry Van de Velde and mentions also Serrurier-Bovy and Paul Hankar in their relation with the English Arts and Crafts. Important also was the publication by H. Curjel in Pipers Verlag/München of Henry van de Velde's Memoirs,

Geschichte meines Leben", in 1962; the memorial exhibition Henry Van de Velde (1863—1957), organised in Brussels in 1963, contributed to widen the interest in his work to a circle broader than the existing Van de Velde Society as counterpart of the inimical Horta Society. As a kind of irony of fate the exhibition took place in Horta's Palais des Beaux-Arts (1923...) in Brussels, now a listed monument. Another comprehensive exhibition around the architect Antoine Pompe (1873—1980) and the Modern Effort in Belgium, 1890—1940, was organised in 1969 by the „Archives de l'Architecture Moderne", recently founded by alumni of the architecture school of La Cambre — the center since 1926 for modern art and architecture training, with Henry van de Velde as its first director. This exhibition in the Brussels suburb Elsene, with a catalogue written by Maurice Culot and François Terlinden, gave a first overview of the evolution in Belgium in the crucial years 189—1940, focusing on two generations of „modernistic" architects; for each of them a short biography, bibliography and selection of their main buildings was made so that basic material was at hand. Astoningshly enough, one of the most typical and valuable works of the modernistic architect L. De Köninck, the Canned House in the Brussels suburb Oudergem, was demolished in that same year 1969, despite all protests made the architects' world. In this atmosphere of ,,recognition", overshadowed by the tremendous speculative demolition and new building activities of the golden sixties and the recommendations of the Council of Europe, the Fine Art Direction of the still unitarian Ministry of Culture and Education decided in 1965/66 to take over the inventory task, as the Royal Commission still hadn't got the staff to do so. Belgium had to draw up and publish finally a consequent overview of its cultural heritage, starting with the threatened built environment. This decision fitted into the context of the recom/sir