CLARA n°2 - Architecture/Research

The second issue of CLARA Architecture/Recherche deals with two much-disputed architectural and societal issues.

A first thematic section offers an exploratory insight into Mosque architecture in Brussels, based on the work conducted by students and teachers of an architectural and urban design studio at the La Cambre-Horta School of Architecture, and supported by ongoing research at ULB.

On-site surveys, interviews, and architectural designs guide us across the built and social reality of Muslim places of worship at the hearth of Europe's capital-city, questioning both the place of Islam in the public space, and the capacity of Brussels' urban and social fabric to accommodate new uses.

A second thematic section is devoted to the recent transfer of architectural education to the university. It scrutinizes the design studio's historicity as a pedagogic device, the scientific nature of architecture as a field of knowledge, the challenges faced over time by education in architecture, and the profession's social status.

The Centre des Laboratoires Associés pour la Recherche en Architecture(Associated Laboratories Centre for Architectural Research) – CLARA's yearly journal offers a forum for research addressing the debate in architecture in relation to present-day societal issues. Thematic sections, miscellaneous papers, and accounts of the ULB's Archives d'architecture all together delineate such questions in time and space.