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Jean Delhaye (1908−1993) is still little known to the general public, but although his name is associated with the ‘defender of Horta’, he was first and foremost an architect.
After graduating from the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1933 with a degree in architecture and drawing, Jean Delhaye worked in Victor Horta’s technical office. At the same time, he developed his own architectural practice, specialising in the construction of modern flat blocks from 1937 onwards, and working on some of Horta’s buildings from the 1960s onwards. His work reflected the concerns of a time when Brussels, in the midst of a property crisis, was struggling with its urban development and rediscovering its Art Nouveau heritage after decades of indiscriminate destruction. Delhaye’s radical positions and certain decisions, which have since been criticised, were those of a pragmatic man.
From the 1960s onwards, and for a long period of his career, he led a veritable ‘crusade’ to defend Victor Horta’s work against his detractors, who saw these buildings as nothing more than ‘folkloric interest’ and denigrated the ‘noodle style’, a term long associated with Art Nouveau. Delhaye put his heart and soul into his work, stirring up public opinion, contacting politicians, looking for funding, making inventories, writing, photographing, buying and convincing. He sometimes failed, became angry, despaired, but never gave up.
A tireless campaigner, Delhaye today occupies a unique place among the defenders of Victor Horta’s work. He helped to save buildings of inestimable historical value which, 40 years later, are now being restored with the scientific rigour they deserve. These include the furniture from the Wolfers Frères shop and the winter garden from the Hôtel Cousin, now in the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, the stones from the façade of the Hôtel Aubecq and the photographic record of the dismantling of the Maison du Peuple.
In 1937, Jean Delhaye’s parents bought the corner building annexed to the Hôtel van Eetvelde. Twenty years later, in 1958, Delhaye began work to install his office and live there with his family. He lived there until 1977. This building, acquired by the Brussels-Capital Region in 2022, is none other than the one that now houses LAB·AN. The Jean Delhaye, architect[e] exhibition, designed by ARCHistory in collaboration with the Commune of Ganshoren and with the support of urban.brussels and the Service de la Culture française, will be on show there from September 2024.