From 1968 to the late 1970s, two little known Belgian architects succeeded in creating prefabricated houses that were accessible and adaptable2. In these innovative systems—one in wood, the other in steel—the ambitions of industry and open form intersected with a humanist approach, placing the inhabitant in the role of designer and builder of their own home. These process-based architectures, carried out in small, overlooked locations in Wallonia, are documented in the film La Vie en Kit3, which I directed as part of my research. These modular houses, with components catalogued for flexible combinations, led to architectural outcomes shaped by multiple contributors. Hence, these architectures did not produce traditional documents. In my research, I found few plans and no models. What remained were construction specifications—informative but devoid of human presence. More revealing of the processes was the often undervalued archive in our field: television and family –photographic and video- archive. Both served as the foundation for an investigation where oral history played a key role. I will present several key archives and demonstrate how they collectively form a complex and compelling narrative, remaining faithful to the multi-voiced nature of these projects. This ties into current questions regarding architectural historiography and its archives. For the past two decades, architectural scholars have urged us to reconsider the concept of authorship and move away from hegemonic narratives. Colomina drew attention to the private life of architecture4, while Gosseye, Stead and van der Plaat5 advocated for including forgotten stakeholders, such as inhabitants, construction workers, minorities, and of course women. Television and family archives—whose pitfalls must also be addressed—provide some of these missing narratives. As Thomine notes, the television archive has recorded numerous testimonies from inhabitants that are diUicult to find elsewhere, while Kelly6 demonstrates that family archives reveal the porous boundaries between the professional and the personal. This alternative, yet challenging, type of archive oUers a polyphonic and vivid account, showing how professional and personal lives in process-based architectures are intertwined. What emerges is a more imperfect, sensitive, and situated history of architecture.
Degavre et al. (Wed,) studied this question.