Constantin Brodzki

Brodzki was born in Rome and moved to Belgium before World War II. After an internship working with architects involved with building the UN Headquarters in New York City, he moved back to Belgium, where his most notable works, including the CBR Building, were realized. On 28 March 2021 it was reported that Brodzki had died, at the age of 96.

In 1979, the CBR Building was the only project in Belgium by a Belgian architect that was selected for a Museum of Modern Art exhibition entitled Transformations in Modern Architecture. -- something may have been lost in translation, as the catalogue mentions the banque lambert building and contains a picture of it as well, but appears to neither mention the cbr building nor contain a picture of it, as seen at https://web.archive.org/web/20200525100948if_/https://assets.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1773_300296962.pdf --> In 2018, the government of Brussels placed the building under protection.

Brodzki's use of prefabricated concrete modules in organic shapes for building façades was eventually called "CBR-style" in Belgium. By the end of the 1970s, an increased number of buildings using this style were erected, including the Rob Supermarket in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre and the former town hall of Etterbeek on Avenue d'Auderghem [fr]. However, the trend had waned by the early 1980s. Brodzki posited that the decline was due to a lack of coordinated understanding of the material by the construction team. When he had first developed his method of creating prefabricated concrete modules in organic forms, Brodzki noted that the complexity of the project required everyone to understand what they were doing.

In 1958, Brodzki was selected, along with fellow architect Corneille Hannoset [fr; pl], to construct the Colonial Fauna Pavilion in the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi Section of Expo 58 in Brussels. Brodzki reasoned that since no straight lines were found in nature, he did not see why he should design a pavilion with straight lines for the expo. He had never understood the modernist tendency to solely use concrete as structural material to be cast into straight lines and shapes, as he felt that because concrete is a liquid in its original state, it had a lot untapped potential in the forms that it could take. Brodzki saw the Expo 58 project as an opportunity to showcase his thoughts, and he eventually designed a round concrete building with a dome of about 30 m (100 ft) and curves throughout the interior. His building ended up being one of the most visited pavilions in the section.

Brodzki began studying at the visual arts school La Cambre in Brussels during the war, and earned a degree there in 1948. He said he did not learn a lot of practical information at La Cambre, and recalled writing poems during his lessons and clashing often with his professor Charles Van Nueten [fr].

Constantin Brodzki (French pronunciation: ​[kɔ̃stɑ̃tɛ̃ bʁɔdzki]; 26 October 1924 – 27 March 2021) was a Belgian architect. He is mostly known for his Brutalist architecture and prefabricated modules using concrete in fluid and organic shapes. He was awarded the quinquennial Baron Horta Prize [fr] in 2007.

Brodzki was born on 26 October 1924 in Rome, Kingdom of Italy. His father was a Polish diplomat, and his mother was Belgian. He was raised in Italy, Germany, and Poland, and stated that he had known by the time he was seven years old that he wanted to be an architect. He eventually moved to Belgium in 1938, before World War II.