Cité-Jardin Kapelleveld: Avant Garde housing in shades of grey

The garden village Kapelleveld at Woluwe-Saint-Lambert near Brussels is an example of a modernist interpretation of the garden city model, here translated into a garden suburb or suburban garden village. The housing is mostly modernist, with a small section in a traditionalist style. The housing with the flat roofs and the dark roof trim is similar to that seen in La CitéModerne, another modernist garden village near Brussels.

Of the three tree-lined avenues two remain. The central avenue has a tram and the southern avenue has a garden-like central reservation. The northern avenue was never replanted after WW2. Cars and parking now dominate the edges. As this avenue was intended as a major thoroughfare the dimensions can handle present-day traffic.

In the 1950s some blocks of terraced housing were added along the Avenue Albert Dumont. This housing by Paul Posno (right) is similar in size to the original housing (left), but much less detailed. Also the block is treated less sculptural and the proportions are much less harmonious -the blocks are evidently not designed with asset of harmonious proportions in mind. The Avenue Albert Dumont was named after an architect of French origin who is well known for designing many villas and cottages, especially on the Belgian coast. He was also one of the promotors of the Garden City Movement in Belgium.

The original housing was arranged along kinged streets that ran off the avenues at a right angle. The side walls form the entrances to the residential streets. This way of separating street along function is common in New Objectivity housing in the Benelux and Germany.

The kinked street marries the ideal of short view creating a sense of place which fits nicely with Sitte-esque design theory and the Unwinesque elaboration of it. Apart from this the garden village at Kappelleveld has no typical features of the Garden City Movement aesthetic.

The blocks of terraced housing are sculptural compositions with a strong cubist aesthetic. The short chimneys at the corners of the main blocks are used in a decorative way to break the flatness of the roofline which is emphasised by the black wooden trim. The staggering of the building line is very effective and creates a pleasant flow along the street.

Another type is basically a modernist semidetached house with protruding sections at the corners, reminiscent of standing bays. In places this type has been linked to form row housing (left). The design plays with verticality and horizontality with the narrow high windows at either end and low and wide windows in the middle.

The standard type with the low chimneys all have rendered facades. The colour can vary from off white, via light grey (on the left) to dark grey (on the right at the front). The wooden trim is always painted black to unify the sculptural blocks in the streetscape.

All housing has a front garden. In true garden village style these gardens were edged by a hedge. Here privet was used. All gardens were made uniform by using a similar green edge. Sadly the hedges have bene removed in places, or have bene replaced by hedges made from a different plant species (mostly beech and box). At the end of the streets the orange clay tile roofs of the intermediate section are just visible.

The southwestern section of the garden village was designed in a mixed style with pitched roofs covered in clay tiles above cubist blocks. The result is an Avant Garde marriage of the traditional and the modern. All the facades are rendered, with wooden trim in black and white. The chimneys are practical and not used as a decorative device. The bays and dormers are used in that way however.

The intermediate housing has flat dormers with a protruding roof directly above the window frames. Al woodwork of the doors and windows is painted white, as well as the underside of the eaves (right). The front of the box gutter is painted black. The awnings above the front doors are treated similarly.  

The contrast between these two sections is remarkable. This makes that the garden village Kapelleveld is defined as three neighbourhoods by the architectural expression of the buildings. The central core is modernist, sculptural and cubist, the southwestern section is Avant Garde mix of traditional and modern and the southeastern section is traditionalist with a sculptural treatment of the facades in brick.