This article evaluates the complementary and overlapping professional roles of architects and engineers during the interwar period in Belgium. The porosity of these two professions remains largely under-researched in contemporary historiography of modern building, as historians tend to ascribe authorship to the architect without acknowledging the traces of intense collaboration between engineers and architects. Focusing on the practice of the consulting engineer Eugène François (1870–1957) and his collaboration with the architect Alexis Dumont (1877–1962), this article studies two public buildings designed by this duo to examine the day-to-day responsibilities of engineers and architects during the interwar period. It demonstrates how, prior to the legal establishment of both professions, the tasks and duties that are now attributed to architects were often covered by engineers. The intervention of architects, on the other hand, was regarded as necessary to preserve the aesthetic qualities of appropriate façades in the public domain. As the Belgian law of 1939 that attributed and protected the title of architects attempted to clarify their roles and responsibilities, these findings shed a new light on the practices of designing and building, and the attribution of authorship among professional ‘builders’ in Belgium during the interwar period.

中文翻译：

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两次世界大战期间建筑师的模糊立场：工程师欧仁·弗朗索瓦的案例

本文评估了比利时两次世界大战期间建筑师和工程师的互补和重叠的专业角色。这两个职业的漏洞在现代建筑的当代史学中很大程度上仍未得到充分研究，因为历史学家倾向于将作者身份归于建筑师，而不承认工程师和建筑师之间密切合​​作的痕迹。本文关注咨询工程师 Eugène François (1870-1957) 的实践以及他与建筑师 Alexis Dumont (1877-1962) 的合作，研究这对二人组设计的两座公共建筑，以检验工程师的日常职责和两次世界大战期间的建筑师。它展示了在这两种职业合法建立之前，现在归于建筑师的任务和职责通常由工程师承担。另一方面，建筑师的干预被认为是必要的，以保持公共领域适当立面的美学品质。由于 1939 年赋予和保护建筑师头衔的比利时法律试图澄清他们的角色和责任，这些发现为设计和建造实践以及在两次世界大战期间。