Language Crisis
Louvain-la-Neuve was born as a result of the Leuven Crisis.
Following the elections prompted by this affair, the expansion of the French-speaking part of the University was voted upon and approved on 18 June 1968. A few weeks later, the separation of the Catholic University of Leuven was made official. It resulted in the creation of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL), the Dutch-speaking one, that would stay in Leuven, and the Université Catholique de Louvain, which had to move to the future site of Louvain-la-Neuve, except for the French-speaking medical faculty, which moved to Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, in the suburbs of Brussels.
The first blueprints of Louvain-la-Neuve were made in a hurry and under dramatic times. Put under the direction of Raymond Lemaire, Jean-Pierre Blondel and Pierre Laconte, this urbanistic project saw the first students arrive in 1972.
Read more about this topic: Louvain-la-Neuve
Famous quotes containing the words language and/or crisis:
“Translate a book a dozen times from one language to another, and what becomes of its style? Most books would be worn out and disappear in this ordeal. The pen which wrote it is soon destroyed, but the poem survives.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“One theme links together these new proposals for family policy—the idea that the family is exceedingly durable. Changes in structure and function and individual roles are not to be confused with the collapse of the family. Families remain more important in the lives of children than other institutions. Family ties are stronger and more vital than many of us imagine in the perennial atmosphere of crisis surrounding the subject.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)