The ambiguous position of architects during the interwar period: the case of the engineer Eugene Francois

This article evaluates the complementary and overlapping professional roles of architects and engineers during the interwar period in Belgium. The porosity of these two professions remains largely under-researched in contemporary historiography of modern building, as historians tend to ascribe authorship to the architect without acknowledging the traces of intense collaboration between engineers and architects. Focusing on the practice of the consulting engineer Eugene Francois (1870-1957) and his collaboration with the architect Alexis Dumont (1877-1962), this article studies two public buildings designed by this duo to examine the day-to-day responsibilities of engineers and architects during the interwar period. It demonstrates how, prior to the legal establishment of both professions, the tasks and duties that are now attributed to architects were often covered by engineers. The intervention of architects, on the other hand, was regarded as necessary to preserve the aesthetic qualities of appropriate facades in the public domain. As the Belgian law of 1939 that attributed and protected the title of architects attempted to clarify their roles and responsibilities, these findings shed a new light on the practices of designing and building, and the attribution of authorship among professional 'builders' in Belgium during the interwar period.