Collection

Alleur Nursery

  • Date 1965-1969
  • Address Rue Bolsée, 160 – 4432 Alleur

By the late 1960s, Charles Vandenhove and his team were receiving a steady stream of commissions. In addition to the massive University Hospital construction project, the University’s projects both in the city centre and at Sart Tilman kept the practice running at full capacity. This did not prevent Charles Vandenhove from accepting more modest commissions. The commission for a ‘nursery home’ to be built in Alleur, on the hills above Liège, was first and foremost a realisation of the social values that Vandenhove shared with Father Gerratz. The latter, curate of the parish of Bressoux and regarded as Liège’s own Abbé Pierre, founded La Maison heureuse asbl in 1955, a charity dedicated to helping the most disadvantaged. Since the 1950s, the Vandenhove-Belvaux couple had been supporting the priest’s charitable work until a meeting that would forge a lifelong friendship. For several years, Charles Vandenhove lent his expertise as an architect to Father Gerratz to maintain the properties owned by the non-profit organisation. When, in 1968, the priest envisaged building a complex for young single mothers, it was only natural that he turned to Vandenhove. Formerly belonging to the Episcopal Seminary of Liège, the plot of land acquired by La Maison heureuse asbl covers nearly 3,000 m2 in an ordinary housing estate on the outskirts of Liège. Set back from the road, the building follows a layout reminiscent of that of the Schoffeniels house or the Salle du Standard. From a square central core housing a spiral staircase, access routes branch out diagonally. On the ground floor, the communal areas (kitchen, dining room, laundry room, children’s playroom, etc.) and the director’s private flat are arranged around a central space lit by a skylight. Upstairs, eight studio flats are arranged in pairs on either side of the building. Each pair of flats shares a bathroom and a toilet. The style adopted by Vandenhove is reminiscent of that of the Home Brull, where brick and architectural concrete interact subtly. At the corners of the building, the architect has left a gap between the masonry walls. Whilst the overall layout draws on earlier projects, the covering of certain outdoor spaces with Plexiglas domes supported by circular concrete columns is unmistakably reminiscent of the solutions employed in the Schoffeniels House.

  • Description of the collection

    Cost estimates, specifications, correspondence, plans, photographs…
  • Bibliography

    BEKAERT, Geert, VERSCHAFFEL, Bart, Charles Vandenhove Art & architecture, Tournai, La Renaissance du livre, 1998, p. 210.
  • AUTHOR AND DATE OF THE ENTRY Sébastien Charlier, 2023