Between 2013 and 2024, Belgium’s four French-speaking faculties of architecture were invited to submit proposals addressing a single question: what is the appropriate setting for learning architecture? An exhibition, organised by the ICA, traces the various project proposals and is currently on display at the La Cambre Horta faculty building in Brussels. The travelling exhibition will then move on to the three other faculties of architecture in question, in Tournai, Mons and Liège.

Driven by the Bologna Process, Belgium’s faculties of architecture were established in 2010. This integration of higher education institutes with universities, alongside an increase in student numbers and changes in teaching methods, has prompted a broader reflection on the spaces in which architecture is taught.

In Tournai, a call for tenders was launched in 2013 to relocate the school to the city centre. ‘Architect-builders’ were invited to ensure that construction implications were discussed from the earliest stages of the project’s design. In 2022, in Liège, a call for tenders was launched to bring all the faculty’s activities together on a single site, that of the former Fonck barracks. In the same year, in Brussels, the European recovery plan was activated to bring the faculty’s main activities together within the same building on the Solbosch campus. In 2024, Mons is breaking new ground by launching, notably through this exhibition, a participatory process to define the future faculty of architecture.

This look back at the construction of the four faculties of architecture illustrates a range of ideas for building a school of architecture. Along the ramp of the La Cambre Horta building, visitors can stroll whilst taking in each of the 15 projects on display, which were developed by teams of Belgian and international architects. On stainless steel panels, we find the competition entries, as well as models, booklets and the winners’ reflections through video interviews. The four approaches on display thus illustrate how the challenges of building an architecture school have evolved over the past decade and offer an insight into what this entails today.