Référentiel culturaliste des Stages Développement-Aménagement-Construction, Institut supérieur d’architecture La Cambre, Bruxelles, 1984-2003

Abstract

Three-month training courses in Brussels for 400 trainees from ‘developing countries’ were organized between 1984 and 2003. The aim of this article is to present the documents deposited in Archives et Bibliothèque d’architecture at ULB, and to inspire future research by evoking their particular dimensions (French language, South-South exchanges, personalities, networks). The archives of the Stages Développement-Aménagement-Construction (DAC) constitute a corpus of texts, programs, contributions from teachers and trainees, and study trip reports. The courses are part of the curriculum of the Institut supérieur d’architecture La Cambre and are linked to other courses on appropriate technologies, human settlements and typomorphology. Their content is placed in the historical and theoretical context of development approaches. The course team endeavors to introduce trainees to the cultural and spatial dimensions of development through various publications and narratives. This aspect is illustrated by a more detailed account of the 1987–88 session, “Managing urban growth”. The archives show the extent to which a commitment to development with a cultural dimension implies a questioning of development and cooperation dynamics.

Image: International Year of Shelter for the Homeless, 1987, affiche produite pour l’UNCHS (Habitat) par le Human Settlements Programme, IIED. Design : Pat Crooke, 1984 © Archives et Bibliothèque d’architecture de l’ULB – FGFSI.