About this talk

Running time: 27 minutes

The Belgian architect Lucien Kroll received his architectural education at the École Nationale Supérieure Des Arts Visuels De La Cambre, Brussels, and studied city planning at the Institut Supérieure De La Cambre and at the Institut Supérieure Internationale d'Urbanisme, Brussels. In 1951, he started to practise, first for six years with Charles Vandenhove and then as Atelier Kroll. Since 1970 he has taught at L' École St. Luc De St. Giles, Brussels. He was a founder in 1956 of the Institut d'Esthetique Industrielle in Brussels. He has exhibited widely, is the author of many articles, and is a Member of the Order of Belgian Architects.

The architecture and planning practised by Kroll is, as he says, "...organic. It's made of uncertainties, it's unlimited, it's open-ended, it leads to evolution, it creates complexity", it takes account of energy conservation. It uses basic means and materials that weather well and his buildings seek not to impose themselves on their occupants.

From his very large output of work, he chooses to illustrate his talk with only four projects. One of these is the Medical Faculty of the University of Louvain-la-Neuve near Brussels with which he received international recognition in 1970. Probably the first building in Europe to be built with participation of the community, in this case the students, it so shocked the university authorities that they sacked him.

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