'Les Hommes de la Route'. Engineering the Urban Society of the Modern Road in Belgium, 1889-1962
Doctoral dissertation David Peleman
This dissertation aims to shed a new light on the project for the modernisation of the roads that was realized in Belgium between 1889 and 1962.
The research starts from the premise that a broad group of actors contributed to a repositioning of the modern road in society – a process that went hand in hand with the modernisation of the roads. A wide range of associations – of drivers, tourists, engineers, industrials, building contractors, academics – that occasionally described themselves as Les Hommes de la Route appealed to a number of commonplaces to make their project comprehensible and to communicate their project to the public. By way of six of those places or topoi – the city, the landscape, the laboratory, the conference, the street and the museum – this dissertation outlines how the project of the modern road was inscribed in the public sphere and how it contributed – in a diversified way – to the urbanisation of the Belgian territory and society.
Info
Doctoral student: David Peleman
Public defense: 2013-11-22
Supervisor: prof. Pieter Uyttenhove
Examination Board:
Em. prof. Luc Taerwe, chair
Prof. Pieter Uyttenhove, supervisor, Ghent University – Department of Architecture and Urban Planning (EA01)
Prof. Michiel Dehaene, secretary, Ghent University – Department of Architecture and Urban Planning (EA01)
Dr ir.-arch. Bruno Notteboom, Ghent University
Prof. Johan Lagae, Ghent University – Department of Architecture and Urban Planning (EA01)
Dr ir.-arch. Bénédicte Grosjean, École nationale supérieure d'architecture et de paysage (ENSAP), Lille, France & Université catholique de Louvain, Tournai
Prof. Patrick De Baets, Ghent University – Faculty of Engineering and Architecture (EA08)
Dr Carlos Galvis, University of London, School of Advanced Study, London, United Kingdom