TY - JOUR AU - Feyaerts, Jozefien PY - 2014/09/01 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - De architect als ambtenaar. Philippe Van Boxmeer (1863-1955) aan het hoofd van de Mechelse bouwadministratie (1893-1913) JF - Bulletin KNOB JA - KNOB VL - 113 IS - 3 SE - Artikelen DO - 10.7480/knob.113.2014.3.847 UR - https://bulletin.knob.nl/index.php/knob/article/view/45 SP - 145-162 AB - <p>In 1893, Philippe Van Boxmeer (1863-1955) was the third&nbsp;person to be appointed city architect of the Belgian&nbsp;town of Mechelen. Some major cities such as Antwerp&nbsp;and Ghent had already instituted a city architect in the&nbsp;eighteenth century, and during the nineteenth century&nbsp;many smaller Belgian cities like Mechelen followed&nbsp;their example. Attention to the role and significance of&nbsp;these municipal architects has grown considerably in&nbsp;current research, and the Van Boxmeer case too provides&nbsp;an interesting perspective on the function and&nbsp;activities of governmental architects in medium-sized&nbsp;towns around 1900.&nbsp;</p><p>Van Boxmeer was responsible for the iconic (although&nbsp;sometimes controversial) restoration of some of Mechelen’s&nbsp;major monuments. Among other buildings, he&nbsp;restored the former town hall ‘De Beyaert’ in a historicizing&nbsp;style and reconstructed the so-called ‘Keldermans&nbsp;wing’ at the old clothmakers’ hall by following&nbsp;Rombout&nbsp;II&nbsp;Keldermans’ original plans. Inspired by&nbsp;initiatives in other Belgian cities at the time, he also&nbsp;successfully implemented a funding system for the restoration&nbsp;of private historical facades, demonstrating&nbsp;an awareness of contemporary developments.&nbsp;</p><p>During his career as a city architect, he applied this&nbsp;scheme to restore some fifteen historically and architecturally&nbsp;valuable facades of private homes.&nbsp;</p><p>Where his predecessors had focused mainly on the &nbsp;modernization of the city, Van Boxmeer’s concern for&nbsp;its historical heritage was one of the focal points of his&nbsp;career. This shows that city architects could play an important&nbsp;role in heritage conservation.&nbsp;</p><p>Nevertheless, Van Boxmeer did not focus exclusively&nbsp;on the town’s history. He certainly also had an eye for&nbsp;its future development and drew up ambitious plans to&nbsp;improve mobility in the city center and the periphery&nbsp;and to realize more public parks and gardens.&nbsp;</p><p>Financial&nbsp;limitations, policy makers’ visions but also political&nbsp;intrigue had an impact on the ability of the city architect&nbsp;to effectuate his ideas. Already in Van Boxmeer’s&nbsp;recruiting, his local anchoring and (Roman Catholic)&nbsp;political affiliation had played a certain part. Four years&nbsp;of Liberal dominance in the city administration led to&nbsp;a crisis within the office of public works, which resulted&nbsp;in Van Boxmeer’s dismissal, be it only temporarily.&nbsp;Moreover, his ambitious urban planning designs were&nbsp;not or only partly realized, due to their high financial&nbsp;costs but also because of lack of political support.&nbsp;</p><p>Our study of administrative archival documents relating&nbsp;to his realized projects was supplemented by a&nbsp;critical reading of Van Boxmeer’s memoirs. These&nbsp;proved a unique source for research on the subject, providing&nbsp;a highly personal perspective on the office of the&nbsp;city architect, and the opportunities and constraints&nbsp;entailed in working in public service.</p> ER -