The Design Centre in Brussels: 1964-1986
This is an excerpt from the book Design in Belgium : 1945 – 2000 written by Lise Coirier.
«We are living amid mediocrity. The meaning of the Signe d’Or is to highlight and reward products that serve as statements against mediocrity. And also, the Signe d’Or is to the Belgian industry what the rosette is on a lapel: a small, yet significantly prestigious detail, both in Belgium and abroad.»
J. des Cressonnières, in: Infordesign, n°24, 9/1968.
The Design Centre opens its doors in Brussels
The Belgian-Luxemburg DC was inaugurated in the Ravenstein galleries in Brussels on February 19, 1964; the event was attended by His Royal Highness Prince Albert as well as the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Managing Director Josine des Cressonnières was the organiser of this activity hub located near the central railway station and Sabena’s air terminal, at the heart of the city’s business and tourist centre and a stone’s throw from the Federation of Belgian Industries (FIB) and the Belgian Office of Foreign Trade (OBCE). When it was established in February 1962 the association’s focus was to “set up a permanent exhibition centre devoid of any gainful motives, aimed at promoting the prestige of the Belgian industry in compliance with the criteria of industrial design, at initiating a centre of interest and a documentation centre for foreign buyers and the Belgian public, as well as an information centre which, by its standing, shall contribute to educate the public and make it more knowledgeable…” At the time other DCS already existed in London, Essen, Amsterdam, Helsinki, Stockholm, Stuttgart and Tokyo. One of the objectives of the Belgian-Luxembourg DC was to further build relations with foreign initiatives through a network of multiple exchanges.
Josine des Cressonnières, the soul and spirit of the site
Described as a very attractive, charismatic woman and very intuitive in the programme aimed at promoting design, J. des Cressonnières (1926-1985) personified thirty years of fostering both design and industrial design in Belgium. She was widowed at the very early age of 25 as she lost her husband in the summer of 1952 during his appointment as General Director of Intertropicale Comfina in Leopoldville in Congo. After the birth of her daughter Géraldine, she started her career at the Innovation department store on rue Neuve as a fashion designer and buyer in the home furnishings department between 1953 and 1956. She subsequently created the Signe d’Or Benelux in a private capacity, awarding the prize every two years, with the support of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Thanks to the support of both Pol Provost and André De Poerck, J. des Cressonnières became the head of the DC, and incorporated the Signe d’Or into her programme. The programme became a triennial event as of 1968 until 1983. At the time it was seen as being on a par with the highest international awards, such as the British Design Award or the Italian Compasso d’Oro. Regardless of the prize the DC rapidly became the perfect tool for looking after the interests of designers and companies in Belgium.
Establishing the DC was allegedly inspired by the London-based DC, headed by Sir Paul Reilly since its inception in 1956. In his piece entitled “The Expanding role of DCs” (ICSID, 1975) Reilly emphasized the kind of progress industrial design should accomplish, moving from the object to the study of society and serve as a “showcase” and “social laboratory”. He advised J. des Cressonnières (as did Tomas Maldonado and André Ricard during ICSID meetings) to surround herself with a group of designers likely to represent the younger generation of Belgian industrial design. Incidentally, Philippe Neerman, who was very involved in setting up this DC since he first starting working for De Coene (Neerman was chairman Pol Provost’s éminence grise), claims to be behind the very concept of the Brussels School. As he indicated himself in the mid 1950s several fellow designers were won over to the goal of having a Brussels-based DC. Some of these fellow designers included André De Poerck, Lucien Kroll, Corneille Hannoset, Constantin Brodzki, Pierre Génicot, Jacques Richez, Michel Olyff, Charles Dethier, Willy Van der Meeren, Jules Wabbes, Jos De Mey, …
Selections and quality labels
For its exhibitions the DC establishes a criteria template to select the objects; this list is recurrently inscribed on the Signe d’Or awards and mentioned in all calls for selection: “Functional value of object or object well adapted to its use, aesthetic value, technical quality, sound choice of materials used, perfection of execution, inventiveness, price consistent with above-mentioned qualities and human unity / value of the solution.” Producers showcase their mass-produced items currently for sale on the market, the manufacturer is invited to come and comment on it and if the object is not movable, the jury goes to it. Three categories of products are taken into account: consumer durable goods, equipment and investment goods, packaging and some small-scale, traditional productions that allow for mass-production methods. Index cards including the title name, the name of the manufacturer and designer, along with a short description and a picture of the product, its price and strong points allow visitors (the general public and potential buyers) to better understand the designs presented by the DC as part of its ongoing and temporary exhibitions.
The Ravenstein Gallery, an adjustable platform
The inauguration as well as the team in charge of designing and developing the DC were presented in the offprint called Le DC, issued by the monthly Industrie (FIB, January 1965): Constantin Brodzki, Architect, Pierre Génicot, Designer, Michel Olyff, Graphic Designer, W. Bresseleers, Consultant and André De Poerck, Coordinator. The Ravenstein Gallery construction site was mostly the result of J. des Cressonnières’ determination, further serving as the ‘interface’ between Belgium’s business world and political realm. Initially, the project was not workable nor could a figure be put on it, but it still came to be thanks to a combination of talents. Constantin Brodzki coordinated the architectural programme and allied himself with the skills of the likes of Pierre Génicot for all the objects, Philippe Neerman for the engineering and design as well the final development stage (together with the De Coene art studios) and of Michel Olyff for all graphical and signalling aspects. The originality of DC’s architecture was that it toyed around with what Brodzki called “space modulation”. He remembers that “all efforts had to follow the same ambitious path: everything had to be mobile. Even the lighting, with its spotlights and ceiling-mounted luminaires with fluorescent lamps had to be able to move under a suspended ceiling. As the Ravenstein Gallery’s hall is on a very steep slope, we had agreed to bring the ground to a horizontal level by installing three large bench terraces as well as a suspended ceiling capable of creating a volume consistent with human aspects and with the light partitions that outlined the exhibition” (for a total surface of 580 m²). To alternate between stage designs and walking from space to space, Génicot designed some mobile furniture with tables made of two-dimensional wenge and curve wood with a simple Plexiglas top that could serve as a window. “The stairs were also mobile, as the handrail could be taken apart on each set and replaced with a staircase”, recalls C. Brodzki. This avant-garde interior design in an area that was meant to become a movie theatre undoubtedly contributed to the success of the DC.
The international aura of Belgian design
With the Design Centre, the Belgian economy got a new lease of life.
Since its beginnings in the Ravenstein Gallery until 1974 the DC welcomed more than 90,000 visitors every year. The extraneously decorated Belgian interior that somewhat lacked novelty was gradually modified. The time was also that of new neighbourhoods and new cities such as Louvain-La-Neuve in 1971, with its prefabricated turnkey tenements. The stereotypes and functionalism of housing were starting to develop as the city was spreading to the suburbs and overtaking the countryside. In the late 1960s the Belgian highways became the vastest and most dense network in Europe, and is the only one in the world to be entirely lit at night, thanks to luminaires designed by the Schréder group. The city and road networks became consumer objects as landscapes were being modified by automobiles and concrete was taking over public places (parking lots, tunnels, etc.). Television sets were making their way into every household, broadcasting shows in Technicolor. It was only when the first oil crisis appeared that the Belgian people started to change their consumer patterns. Too much waste and too little respect for the environment!
It was also during those years that the “ready-to-discard” culture imported from the USA challenged the long-lasting artisan tradition as well as that of interior decoration designers Belgium was familiar with. Innovative materials at the time, including nylon, plastic, polyester and triplex offered some exciting prospects for designers and industrialists alike, as they saw an opportunity to manufacture larger production runs, meet market requirements and standardize furniture, objects as well as accessories. In 1965, Europlastica, the international plastics fair held in Gent, selected a number of Belgian products, together with the Belgian Committee of Plastics Processing Industries and the DC, which organised three consecutive exhibitions on this topic: Emballages emballants in 1969, with a selection of plastic packaging for processed food from 28 Belgian companies (Bifi, Artois,…), En plastique véritable in 1970, with a special issue published by Belgian Plastics, followed by Mobiliers sans frontière two years later which focused on Meurop. The fad for synthetic materials made from petroleum involved all products as consumers began to know how to tell the difference between Bakelite, Perspex, Luran, imitation leather, vinyl and Tupperware.
The Meurop adventure and the peak of the ‘All-Plastic’ trend
As Meurop quit the metal sector and reconverted to invest in plastics in the mid-1960s, the idea was to produce modern, tasteful furniture at popular prices. Under the leadership of Frans Pottier, Meurop built relations with designers in five countries, including the very trendy British designer Robert Heritage. Emondt-Alt remembers Pottier’s ambition to “introduce contemporary, unpretentious and low-budget plastic furniture. This very functional furniture line was very successful in Flanders and Brussels, especially with students and younger households, while Wallonia was a little more reluctant to it. Pottier took me on his boat all the way to Paris, travelling through Le Havre. It was an unbelievable journey. He took care of everything: selecting the designers he paid on the basis of royalties only (every product carried the initial letter of the designer’s name, just like at Thonet), the production of plastic by injection as well as the management of an entire chain of 42 stores located in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.” Meurop furniture was not of very high quality but at the time the manufacturer offered a very extensive range of items. The energy and plastics crisis caused the company to go bankrupt, which was strangely connected to the tragic fate of the Pottier family.
Concurrently, Maurice Le Clercq designed the Kew-Lox model that pre-empted Meurop’s screwless and glueless Elvire furniture (designed by E.-Alt), made of tubes and polyester foam. The Namur-based company continued to produce furniture with fixed and sliding panels made of Unalit and decorating it with ornamental adhesives under the same name. During this ‘All-Plastic Utopia’ stage (to paraphrase the title of Plasticarium’s exhibition which took place at the Architectural Foundation in Brussels in 1994) a number of Belgian designers emerged: E.-Alt designed the Spa Reine PVC bottle (which won the Packaging Oscar in 1970), reaching a daily production of nearly 120,000 bottles; Jean Keup (Opdermillen) launched his Grigniotières® (1972) and plastic calendars (1971), evocative of Enzo Mari’s calendars for the Italian firm Danese; on behalf of Tupperware Europe (located in Alost) Bob Daenen designed some educational games called Build-O-Fun (at the same time as Lego in Denmark) as well as his Multiservers, Slimservers, his Amphibio collection (1970-73/74) and Florette vases; Charles Dethier had his self-assembled L’Ove Lamps I and II (which won the Signe d’Or in 1968) released by the Ameropean Corporation. At the same time as the DC, Interieur 70 and 72 showed the many facets of plastic productions for housing and leisure purposes. In a press report by Guy Rouckaerts on behalf of Infordesign, Verner Panton spoke about his views on plastic-minded design: “In my work, the most important thing for me is the harmony of the environment,which is infinitely more significant than a simple chair or any other product. Space, colours, pieces of furniture, textiles, the lighting, everything must be designed according to the whole.” A number of companies shared that total self-identity, such as V-Form with its Mobil divider-cupboards, or A. & L. Verhaegen, manufacturers of the Epeda mattress, the Lattoflex bed system and the Beaufort seats. In other terms, homes devoted a lot of space to storage systems, human engineering and well-being.
Belgium, the crossroads of Europe
This is evocative of a board game invented by baroness Michel Fallon in 1970, but it also reflects the country’s advantaged position as a choice location with the presence of the European Community, established in Brussels since the late 1950s. Charles Dethier chaired the Union of Industrial Designers (UID) after A. De Poerck and in 1969, he became one of the founding members of BEDA (Board of European Design Associations). As Jean Keup (Opdermillen) put it: “Belgian companies still had some decision-making authority from the late 1950s until the early 1970s and hadn’t been transferred elsewhere as is the case today. Hiring a designer was considered chic, and the idea was to package the product and then design the wrapping. But as the first oil crisis struck, companies started to shed some of their freelance designers or in some cases, gradually integrated them into a Design Team.” For example, the Philips production plant has been established in Louvain since 1948, with local premises in Brussels, Antwerp, Liège, Luxembourg and Leopoldville. A number of designers, including Emondt-Alt, had designed lighting units for Philips Éclairage Belgique. And at the end of his career at De Coene, Neerman designed the Philips chair for the company’s head office located in Eindhoven.
In addition to Knoll, who was already well established in Belgium thanks to De Coene (Courtrai) and its showrooms in Brussels and Amsterdam, other companies were expressing an interest in the Benelux, with the DC acting as the mediator. For example, Christophe Gevers (who created and designed a number of restaurants and bars in Brussels, including the Taverne des Beaux-Arts, the Marie-Joseph restaurant, the Vieux-Saint-Martin, the very first Quick fast-food restaurants on Stéphanie Square in Brussels, then in Paris, Bordeaux and Milan) was appraoched by Asko Finland to develop a set of office furniture pieces called Asko 300. “The rational beauty of these furniture items, combined with high-quality production and finishing, was designed with the greatest detail in mind”, according to Asko’s information leaflet. “This modular equipment… makes it easy to assemble, while the various elements are interchangeable… it can be adjusted to any furnishing problem in any executive office.” Asko set up its showroom on rue de la Chapelle in Brussels where it also sold objects and accessories made in Scandinavia. Arteluce, also established in Brussels, continued working with Pieter De Bruyne, who had already designed a luminaire with Perspex volumes for the Italian lighting company in 1957. Bataille & ibens were released by Spectrum (NL) and André Verroken by N-Line International. Using ceramics, Pieter Stockmans worked with Mosa in Maastricht (The Netherlands) to design a serviceware range of items: Sonja (1967), followed by other models such as Norma (1982). Textile was also strongly developing, through the Courtrai-based company BIC Carpets, which started the wave of pure wool carpets with Bic Succes, Super Bic Succes and Super frisé, winning the Signe d’Or of 1971. Natural materials re-emerged, toning with the pop art trends of contemporary furniture. Even the wallpapers designed by Evolution Folio in Brussels prompted users to create customized mural paintings. They are reminiscent of Vasarely’s Op Art, whose foundation was designed by Emiel Veranneman ; a few years earlier Veranneman took part in the Belgian pavilion at the Universal Exhibition in Osaka, Japan, alongside Wabbes and Gevers.
The Design Centre: A ten-year review (1964-1974)
As the DC celebrated its 10th anniversary, it issued an offprint with the A+ periodical. The introduction was written by André De Poerck, current president of UID, recalling that in 1959 in Stockholm, at ICSID’s Congress, “leaving all ‘fashion styles’ and ‘industrial beauty’ to formalism, the designer delegates of 19 countries decided to use the word DESIGN as the most fitting symbol of their activities.” In Belgium in the early 1970s, design was exclusively in the hands of three institutions: the Professional Union of Industrial Designers in Belgium (UID), whose purpose is to organise the design trade; the Belgian Institute for the Development of Industrial Design (IBD), a public utility institute that carries out dogmatic and theoretical research; and the Design Centre asbl (DC), a not-for-profit organisation that promotes industrial design in the Belgian industry and among the general public. It receives annual subsidies from the OBCE that cover 50% of its expenditures, the remainder being supplied by the Centre’s own income. In her paper Dix ans du DC, Josine des Cressonnières focused on the extended scope of industrial design, which encompasses not only “the analysis of the product, but also the analysis of product systems, services as well as the company’s overall policy, even including environmental issues…” In 1974 the DC awarded a Signe d’Or to engineering design products or advanced and highly specialized products. Also, budding inter-disciplinarity was noted between several areas of activity: graphic design, industrial design, engineering design, interior design, fashion design,… The 10-year evaluation of an intense programme was largely positive, as the public flocked in while the media echoed anything that was novel. But is the DC still consistent with globalizing market realities? Is a structure at national or Belux level still relevant? Such basic questions were put forward during a round table that brought together industrialists, schools, designers, distributors, consumers, the public sector, the press and DC officials. In the report written by journalist Guy Rouckaerts for A+, a number of events were highlighted by attendants as being extremely innovative: Que font les designers belges was a largely successful event with designers themselves; Jeux, jouets emphasized some excellent toy and game prototypes, to be followed by other exhibitions devoted to design for younger people. For the purposes of product demonstration, Le métro de Bruxelles displayed both the end result as well as all production stages, including the manufacturing process through a number of scale models made by Philippe Neerman. With Le consommateur choisit (consumers are choosers), design’s mechanisms were rendered intelligible. And lastly, L’Eclairage made it possible to distinguish between better products on a market overwhelmed by tackiness. Exhibitions from abroad offered a better way to compare Belgian products with those from outside the country: since 1965 they have hosted Holland, Japan, the London and Vienna DC’s, the three Scandinavian countries, the USSR and after 1974, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, the United States, Greece and Spain.
The subsequent objective was therefore to further the development of the Brussels-based DC so that it could address the issue, and to steer it as much as possible towards consumers and the industry to raise their awareness as they tackle the changes of a society that was going global. “We need to shed its perceived role as a display window for products”, said professor Stiefenhofer, the Director of IBD. DC’s are turning into meeting places for open discussions… As such, we would like to express the wish that DC’s will develop less against an industrial background and increasingly more often against an overall cultural background, added Guy Rouckaerts.
Belgian design and its image
Mobilier belge contemporain was exhibited at the DC in 1967, then on an exchange basis with the London-based DC in 1969. At other times it was shown alongside sector-based exhibitions made possible with the sponsorship of federations such as Féchimie, Febeltex, Fébelbois… With the support of the OBCE, DC reviewed 300 produits à l’image de la Belgique B>70 and focused on the novelties that shaped Belgium’s image in foreign fairs. Human engineering, or the art of adapting tools, machines and workplaces to human beings, was one of the concerns of the time, going hand in hand with the development of teaching industrial design. Que font les étudiants en Industrial Design? (What do students study in industrial design?) was one of the questions asked by the DC in 1969. Concurrently, companies and the distribution sector were expanding through Inno-BM, Casa as well as other store chains such as Resocub, Santens, … Plastics and all-synthetic materials made it possible to achieve much larger production runs than in the past at more reasonable prices (Objets bien dessinés à moins de 500F, DC, 1968), benefiting manufacturers in many business sectors: furniture, luminaires, kitchen and bathroom accessories, textiles, automobiles, etc. The ‘home’ was relinquishing its social undertones – despite one last surge with Alfred Hendrickx’s exhibition for Belform (DC, 1969) – to become a space that was both entertaining and functional. With the new shopping attitude the consumer society was in full swing in the early 1970s. Le home au chantier and Le home, la femme et l’homme (DC, 1970) both focused on the dichotomy between a rational pattern and the utopian views of the time. Houses were being conceived with prefabricated materials in mind, people were drinking out of plastic bottles… yet a number of issues were being raised by the DC as early as 1971: Le consommateur choisit, Pour une nouvelle culture urbaine, La presse du design,… With the oil crisis more natural materials were being considered (Touchons du Bois, Le mobilier de jardin) and new courses of thought furthered the debate: Le trafic dans les villes historiques, Design d’aéroport, Magie du son and Home en kit, which was addressed in the early ‘80s in the Kit & Design exhibition.
With the more rapid developments of industrial design, designers like Pieter De Bruyne started seeking a more experimental type of furniture. The DC organised three exhibitions together with the Institut économique et social des Classes moyennes around the topic Design et métiers d’art. Along the lines of the non-conventional Global Tools school and the Banal Design concepts developed in the late ‘70s by Alessandro Mendini with the Alchimia group, De Bruyne launched into designing unique pieces and positioned himself toward contemporary design. His 1975 Chantilly chest of drawers or his double throne are not that remote from the symbolic Casablanca sideboard designed by Ettore Sottsass, which signalled Memphis studio’s arrival on the scene in the early ‘80s. De Bruyne had a critical eye for industrialised furniture and the fact that it became commonplace among the general public. In his own way he rejected formalism and design’s subservience to the industry. His eccentric suggestion was to mass produce from the craft industry, while at the same time remaining aware of the object’s historical meaning and its development in a household setting. In addition, De Bruyne’s stance made it possible to shift from the concept of materialising the product to a metaphysical and society-based debate.
ICSID’s Interdesigns in Belgium: 1975-1985
Alongside the Brussels-based DC, ICSID served as a platform to think about and exchange ideas among some thirty countries, including Belgium. ICSID’s first Interdesign focused on the issue of urban communications (Urban traffic on a human scale) and was organised at the Collège de l’Europe in Bruges in 1975. The fifteen hectic days of Congress ended with a report written by journalists Guy Rouckaerts and Géraldine des Cressonnières, the daughter of Josine. In 1981 Géraldine was the first to chair the new ICSID-UNESCO committee, leading to the second ICSID Interdesign event in October 1985 held in Louvain-La-Neuve around the topic Medical equipment for developing countries. Twenty-five countries took part, and workshops were interdisciplinary. J. des Cressonnières entrusted her daughter Géraldine with the task of coordinating the Congress, but died after a long illness the day before the Congress opened.
As a reminder, ICSID is an international design network that started up in June 1957 at the instigation of 7 countries, including Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy and the United States. Maldonado’s definition of industrial design (which still holds true today) dates back to a seminar that was held in Bruges in March 1964: “Industrial design is a creative activity whose aim is to determine the formal qualities of objects produced by industry… Industrial design extends to embrace all the aspects of human environment which are conditioned by industrial production.” To avoid any confusion with products, an international association was also set up for graphic designers in 1963: ICOGRADA (International Council of Graphic Design Associations), in which Belgian designers Jacques Richez and Guy Schockaert were very actively involved.
The Biennale Interieur in Courtrai
The choice of the year was probably not altogether an accident, given the events that shook Europe in May as well as the Summer of Love that was organised in the wake of the Biennale Interieur, which opened its doors amid the turmoil of the current events in October 1968 in the Exhibitions Halls of Courtrai (renamed Kortrijk Xpo).
The Fondation Interieur was established in 1967 at the behest of Jan-Pieter Ballegeer and Fred Sandra, the architect of Courtrai’s Exhibition Halls, with the task of “promoting creativity in the field of contemporary housing.” For the Biennale’s first edition nearly a dozen Belgian manufacturers keen to support the spread of the avant-garde shapes of contemporary furniture, attended the event together with a few Dutch and French firms. Some of the participating companies included BIC Carpets, Van den Berghe-Pauvers, Barco and its range of television sets, Niko with the Inter70 switches, Defour, Beaufort & Vform, The Belgian Linen Association, Beka, Simmons mattrasses, Mewaf, Amphora ceramics as well as Finippon’s designer objects, Novalux with some Rudi Verhelst furniture, Top-Mouton furniture, Durlet, and Aurora. In the catalogue of the first Biennial, the title of Geert Bekaert’s foreword was “L’homme ‘designed‘”, speaking of “interior design that involves responsibilities, directly expressing viability, shapes and human character. The crisis contemporary interiors are currently undergoing is akin to the personality crisis. Are men and women in 1968… capable of structuring their own lives in a creative manner?” As of 1970 the Biennial launched its own Bourse aux idées (idea market), which since 1972 has become a contest for young professionals, Design for Europe. Prominent people such as Gio Ponti (I) and Verner Panton (D) were involved in the first editions of Interieur, providing the event with unparalleled international aura. There were some 53,000 visitors in 1968 and more than twice as many until the year 2000. The exhibition floor surface was increased threefold, with a little extra in the form of artisitic direction coordinated by Moniek E. Bucquoye from 1988 to 1994, followed by Marc Dubois and Max Borka. As of 1976 Boudewijn Delaere was responsible for the fair’s graphical identity. International jurys saw some designers of great renown, including Eero Aarnio (FIN), Ron Arad (GB), Gae Aulenti (I), Ricardo Bofill (E), Andrea Branzi (I), Anna Castelli-Ferrieri (I), Robin Day (GB), Javier Mariscal (E), Ingo Maurer (D), Jasper Morrison (GB), Jean Nouvel (F), Pierre Paulin (F), Andrée Putman (F), Peter Raacke (D), Borek Sipek (NL), Ettore Sottsass (I) and Hannes Wettstein (CH).
The 1980s: New creative avenues
The Design Centre defends issues that are abreast of the times, raising the interest of design circles through the Union of Designers in Belgium (UDB) and the “Monde du design” exhibition organised in 1980 as part of Europalia Belgium. The event welcomed more than 15,000 visitors, with an offering of some sixty creations by design teams and designers around a number of themes: the street, public transportation, sports, factories, the house, hospitals, graphical design, etc. The multidisciplinary quality stemming from the presentation opened new prospects; from there on good taste was to be a thing of the past! The early 1980s were characterised by the advent of the computer age, which followed on from the space age of the previous decades. Architects once again became interested in design through international companies such as Alessi, Tecno, Herman Miller, Bulo… And in Belgium, some quotable names include Claire Bataille and Paul ibens, Christian Kieckens and Jo Crépain.
Another Design Centre exhibition was held in 1981. Entitled “Design and Export”, “bringing together forty-seven companies, research and design departments, the creations of which contribute to Belgium’s expansion abroad thanks to their industrial design qualities.” Two prizes were awarded by the Minister of Foreign Trade and by the Société nationale d’investissement. The first prize went to BIC Carpets for its collection of wall-to-wall, pure wool Woolmark carpets, and the second one was given to ABAY for its silo used to store sugar in bulk. Other companies passed with honours: FN for its plasticizer designed in 1978 by Patvoort and Emonds-Alt and its Browning collection of golf clubs designed by Philippe Jeghers, and Tupperware Belgium for its Multiserver of which nearly 2.3 million units were produced. The selection also included Claire Bataille and Paul ibens with their construction kit system 78+ which won them a Signe d’Or. In the leisure area Cross was awarded a label for its Lazer motorcycle helmets, as was Donnay for its collection of Pro tennis rackets, Superia with its range of Éminence and Turbo bicycles, and Etap Yachting with the Etap 20 sailboat. In the interior furniture and textiles department, the Éts. Verhaegen were shortlisted for their Lattoflex programme (designed by Christophe Gevers and Janine Kleykens). Durlet was also included in this category with its Barbados leather chairs, Mercator and its line of Delta office furniture designed by Philippe Olbrechts … As for engineering design, it developed as one of Belgium’s brainchilds, thanks to FN and Prodata, whose C70 cash register designed by Paul Verhaert included the register itself as well as the business micro-computer, all in one.
New expanding sectors: Mobility and lighting
In the field of mobility two companies shared the market. After designing the BOVA bus together with the Technische Hogeschool in Eindhoven, IDEA (Axel Enthoven) continued expanding in the public transportation sector by setting up EADC (Enthoven Associates Design Consultants): streetcars designed together with Alsthom and Bombardier, trains for BN… IDPO Neerman, on the other hand, had been positioned as a research and design department since 1970. Its range of activities involves transportation systems, architecture and urban planning, product design and creating workstations as well as control stations. His clients include Électricité de France and the Société des Autoroutes Paris-Rhin-Rhône. After designing the Brussels metro network (1967-1973) together with the STIB and Brugeoise & Nivelles, Philippe Neerman continued the public transportation adventure by designing subways in Lyon and Marseille, streetcars in Nantes and Grenoble… As J. des Cressonnières said in Design et export, “exporting know-how, in the field of design for example, is one possible road to Belgium’s future expansion abroad. As with all highly industrialised countries Belgium must export grey matter, more so than simply matter…” That vision was rewarded ten years later when IDPO Neerman received the IF Award for his light urban transportation model called Citadis: it was developed with GEC Alsthom as early as 1985 and is still studied and incorporated in the social fabric of some European cities, including Porto, Dublin, Montpellier and Orléans.
The early 1980 was further characterised by the establishment and expansion of lighting design in Belgium, thanks to companies such as Kreon, Modular, Light, Jori and Belgo Chrom. In 1981, the Design Centre devoted an exhibition to Christophe Gevers’ luminaires on behalf of Light. A pioneer in this area, Jean Keup designed the Lightscreen. He was awarded the Design Centre label and more significantly, the first prize in 1980 at the Interieur fair, equipping the lobby with three thousand light rods. This architectural luminaire also graced the Belgian embassy in New Delhi: with light rods of varying length that can be placed anywhere and changed instantaneously, the system is based on the observation that “lighting has developed poorly… Everything has always been designed to catch light; today, we exploit the level of light… In my opinion we are lagging behind people’s true need: human contact”, according to Jean Keup. With this new product and others after that, lighting design became one of the best outlets for Belgian industrial designers.
Revitalising the textile industry and textile designs
The Plan pour le Textile et la Confection had a major effect on safeguarding this imperilled industry and on the designers that revolved around it. The plan, supported by the Institut du Textile et de la Confection de Belgique (ITCB) between 1980 and 1985 made it possible to stabilise jobs, production and consumption in Belgium in the linen, cotton and wool sectors while at the same time developing the chemical fibre market. It also contributed to boost exports as well as the job market for fashion designers and textile designers, as creativity was seen as a source of added value in the areas of fashion and design. Alongside the ITCB and the Fédération de l’Habillement, de la Maille et du Textile (Febeltex), a number of private initiatives enhanced Belgium’s international aura: the annual Decosit Fair (Textirama), with the “D87” design contest in 1987, the Année du Commerce extérieur and the ‘Made in Belgium’ Fair, the “Mode, c’est belge” operation and lastly, the Textivision association, which seeks to pass future trends onto designers and producers. Many designers, especially in Flanders, made good use of the plan and established ties with industrialists.
The trade, promotion and museums
The designer trade has to deal with poor promotional efforts of its activities and with the fact that the industrial economy is turning into a service-oriented society. Despite the inexorable decline of the Design Centre after the final Signe d’Or in 1983, a few new initiatives emerged. The Union of Designers in Belgium Belgique published the first issue of Guide de l’UDB (1981) under the chairmanship of Charles Dethier. A key element was included in that document, namely a Professional Code of Conduct that is still used today as an ethical basis for the qualities required in order to operate in the design sector. In Flanders, graphical designer Paul Ibou launched Vorm in Vlaanderen in 1981, an information periodical devoted to graphical arts, visual communication, design and culture, in which he presented the first edition of the annual Linea fair, a blend of design, art-oriented occupation and plastic arts. As far as promotional efforts are concerned, the Designer’s Week-End started organising (in Brussels in 1983) a yearly round of importer showrooms of major design names at international level (Tradix, J. Van Craen, Tecno…).
Moving away from the beaten track, the Museum of Modern Art organised a retrospective exhibit called “Design en Belgique 1940-1984”. The purpose was to seize the opportunity to open a section devoted to the history of design in the 20th century. A number of areas were highlighted: architecture and furniture, ceramics and glass, textiles and wallpaper, technical products, means of transportation, sports and leisure as well as graphic arts. This was also a way of celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Brussels-based Design Centre, which helped select the pieces to be displayed. Unfortunately, after Josine des Cressonnières passed away in 1985, the permanent collection project came to an end, and on the 1st of July 1986 the Design Centre shut down for good, a rather unfortunate turn in the history of design in Belgium.
Comment [3]
Dear Lise Coirier
I was from the early beginning involved withe the total design
programm of Interieur.
From 1967 till 1998 . So everithing edited and printing
by Interieur during that period
was designed by me.
Hallo Materia.lise.design
concerning The Biennial Interieur/Courtrai;
The architect of the first Hall ( 1) of the exhibition halls / Courtrai
was Architect Van Oost.
an NOT Fred Sandra.
Fred Sandra was Interior decorator at that time for DE COENE and designed the lay-out for Interieur 68/70/72/74/
76/78/80/82/84/86 After 86 he leave Interieur and co-founded the biennial CLASSIC
JAN-PIETER BALLEGEER was NOT involved with Interieur in 1967/1968;
He becomes ADVISER in 74/76/78/80
In 68/70/72 was Lut Schodts the promotion manager.
Boudewijn Delaere
Graphic designer for Interieur
1967/1968 uninterrupted till
1998.
Hallo Materia.lise.design Concerning
The Biennial Interieur/Courtrai;
The architect of the first Hall (1) of the exhibition halls / Courtrai
was Architect Van Oost.
and NOT Fred Sandra.
Fred Sandra was Interior decorator at that time for DE COENE and designed the lay-out for Interieur 68/70/72/74/
76/78/80/82/84/86 After 86 he leave Interieur and co-founded the biennial CLASSIC.
JAN-PIETER BALLEGEER was NOT involved with Interieur in 1967/1968;
He becomes ADVISER in 74/76/78/80 .
In 68/70/72 was Lut Schodts the promotion manager.
____________
Boudewijn Delaere
Graphic designer for Interieur
1967/1968 uninterrupted till
1998.
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