A swimming pool that sinks into the ground and becomes unusable. Architects commit suicide over a failed building. You come across it all in 'Waagstukken', tragic stories about engineering.
Usually we read about buildings in the newspaper or on websites when they have won a prize. An office complex that is so beautiful that it has won the award for 'best building of the year'. But of course much more is being built that does not qualify for this at all, that is mediocre and does not stand out. Or rather, but in a negative sense.
Irritating
Charlotte Van den Broeck wrote the book 'Waagstukken' about this last category of 'failed architecture'. The Belgian Van den Broeck is a poet, studied language and literature at the University of Ghent and shows that she also knows a lot about architecture. Van den Broeck wrote thirteen chapters on tragic architects. They made something, but they felt misunderstood and sometimes they were so weighed down that they killed themselves. After reading 'Waagstuks' it becomes clear that these architects did not just want to build something, for them everything they had was at stake.
This book is also interesting from a scientific point of view. Especially from the point of view of preliminary research into the environment and user research. What surface is being built on? In which environment do you build a property? And how do people experience a house, station or library?
These kinds of investigations don't stop after a building is erected. Once it has been put into use, it often only becomes clear how nice, comfortable or annoying a building is.
From this point of view it is interesting what Van den Broeck writes about a swimming pool in Turnhout, where she grew up. After it was delivered, it started to show flaws. There seemed to be something wrong with the technical installations. Or was it all due to subsidence, because the area has not been researched well enough? It seems like the latter. The technical installations continue to fail due to subsidence. One disaster after another plagues the swimming pool. This could have been prevented with better preliminary research into the technology or the subsurface. Van den Broeck does not only write about these problems, but also about how she used to visit the swimming pool herself.
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Interestingly enough, Van den Broeck does not only write about these shortcomings, but also about how the swimming pool was used by the local residents and how they experienced the setbacks. For example, after the final closure of the swimming pool in 2011, she writes about pub talk. The architect of the pool is said to have committed suicide because of all the trouble with the pool. It is not clear whether he actually did so. But it reflects the tragedy of how creation was talked about.
Suicide returns more often in 'Waagstukken'. An architect designs a building, a conflict arises and it bothers him so much that he puts an end to it. Another example is the Ostend Post Office, which was completed in 1953. It was designed by the Belgian Gaston Eysselinck (1907-1953). It is a large gray building with rectangular shapes, which resemble rectangular boxes of various sizes stacked on top of each other. It was too functional and industrial, was the criticism at the time.
As a contrast to these austere forms, Eysselinck wanted to have a sculpture by Jozef Cantré with round shapes placed in front of it. This led to a fight with the client, which got so high that the architect was no longer allowed to go to the construction site. In the year that the building was completed, he committed suicide. Incidentally, he also had financial and marital problems, but the dispute about the image and the criticism will have played a role. The statue was eventually placed ten years after his death.
Because of these kinds of tragic stories, you don't want to put 'Waagstukken' down while reading. Van den Broeck is a good storyteller. She has a pleasant writing style and knows how to connect the chapters about the thirteen buildings. The fact that many stories are ominous gives the book a sharp edge and that makes it even more fascinating to read.