Imagicasa - Spring 2019 - Preview EN by Imagicasa

ARCHITECTURE, INTERIOR AND LIFESTYLE / SPRING 2019 / RECOMMENDED BY TRIPLE LIVING / IMAGICASA.BE / BE-NL €9,95 / £10

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The images in this advertisement are purely representative in nature and are non-binding. TRIPLE LIVING can under no circumstances be held liable for the content of this advertisement.

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MARCH 2019 232

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200 6 Triple Living: Meerzicht 14 Iconic Architects 22 Van Den Weghe 26 Vincent Van Duysen 38 Nicolas Schuybroek 48 Nestor & Rotsen 54 Dieter Vander Velpen 68 Young Talent 74 GinsOnline 80 Triple Living: Schelde 21 4 | IMAGICASA

86 Glenn Sestig 96 Provas 100 Baobab Collection 106 Bernard Van Milders 116 Marc Merckx 128 Domen/ Van de Velde 136 Ion 142 â&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Huis van Oordeghem 150 Evolution 21 158 OracDecor

164 Dion Arabians 172 Frederic Kielemoes 188 Henry van de Velde 194 Wim Delvoye 200 Ben Sledsens 208 Eric Van Hove 216 Gulde Schoen 222 Het Verschil 226 Fiat 8V Ghia Supersonic 232 Autoworld

DEAR READER, As always, Imagicasa brings you the top of the bill of the interior, architecture and design world. But this time, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve given your familiar magazine a very special look! Imagicasa has drawn the Belgian card for this March edition. Our country may be small, but apart from the best fries, tastiest beers and most exquisite chocolate, we have so much more to offer. Where our previous eight editions highlighted both national and international projects, we believed it was about time to aim the spotlight entirely on ourselves. That is why we present this all-Belgian edition of Imagicasa Magazine with great pride and joy. In this extra-large issue, we present the biggest and most important architects, designers, artists and entrepreneurs from Belgium. Inspiring projects are alternated with interesting, personal conversations. We got to interview Vincent Van Duysen and Nicolas Schuybroek, we had a look at the collection and the life of aeroplane enthusiast Bernard Van Milders, we were able to discover the latest realisations of Triple Living and the artworks of Wim Delvoye and Ben Sledsens also secured a well-deserved place in our magazine. A special edition also requires a unique cover. As you might have noticed, Imagicasa chose a very special and innovative rendition: the paper is made of stone. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not only a colourful cover that will undoubtedly evoke a spring feeling, but it is also completely ecological! Van Den Weghe selected this beautiful stone with the name Giamello especially for us. The quarry in Slovenia is now closed, but the renowned natural stone company still has three blocks in stock. A unique product in the world, of which you now have a piece in your own hands! All that remains for me to do is to thank you, our readers, for your trust in our magazine. I hope you will see that, once again, the entire Imagicasa team has done their utmost best to bring you something unique.

Let me inspire you!

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DEVELOPMENT

Text: Eline De Mont

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MEERZICHT A DREAM VIEW

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Meerzicht, which is part of the Duinenwater real estate project, is a prestigious residence with so-called villa apartments overlooking the Dune Water lake and the beautiful park garden of the new residential site. Thanks to the recognizable, charming coastal architecture with white walls, tiled roofs and spacious living terraces, this will undoubtedly be the new Le Zoute. If you love peace, elegance and discrete luxury, this is the place to be!

roject developer Triple Living is known for building green residential sites that are a pleasant environment to live. One of their newest projects is completely dedicated to rest and relaxation and is again located in a prime location offering all the comforts you could wish for. Duinenwater is a green oasis around the Duinenwatermeer (or, Dune Water lake, the former sand extraction pit called De Cloedt) and promises to become the new Le Zoute. The new residential area is just a stone’s throw from the city centre of Knokke and the domain itself also offers space for many activities. In addition to various shops and catering establishments, a golf course is also planned, there will be a polder forest, there are walking and cycling routes around the lake and there is already a successful water sports club. Not only the surroundings, but also the residences themselves promise nothing but the utmost comfort. The exclusive villa apartments of the ‘Meerzicht’ project, among others, stand for discrete luxury, elegance and carefree living. With its most prominent location – centrally on the main axis of the domain – this residence is the absolute showpiece of Duinenwater. The apartments have both frontal and side views of the lake and are south-facing. It should come as no surprise that the architectural firm Arcas chose a prominent building with a striking appearance. Imagicasa went to take a look and spoke with Bart Chielens, CEO-architect at Arcas which is responsible for the development of the Duinenwater master plan. TYPICAL COASTAL ARCHITECTURE The development of a completely new city district requires a well-thought-out master plan. Moreover, the municipality of Knokke-Heist also has a number of (aesthetic) prerequisits to take into account. Project developer Triple Living therefore called on Arcas Architect, which is internationally renowned for its many years of experience in designing residential districts and multifunctional urban concepts. The architectural office was inspired by the vision of Joseph Stübben, the German ur-

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banist-architect who, at the beginning of the 20th century, not only turned De Haan and Duinbergen into successful seaside resorts. He was also appointed by the Lippens family in 1908 to design the area between the village of Knokke and the border with The Netherlands. Thanks to this architect, Le Zoute gained its typical, elegant appearance with willow lanes, white facades and tiled roofs. Creating peace, relaxation and privacy was also important to Stübben. Decades later, one can still enjoy this ingenious landscape development and contemporary architects are all too aware of the strength of this aesthetic: “People think that successful neighbourhoods such as Duinbergen or Le Zoute have always been there, or have been created by chance. This isn’t true, of course. They were planned

more than a hundred years ago to be successful. You have to make sure you have a good master plan, with rules to control everything. If you let go of that, you’ll see what is happening everywhere else. Then you don’t have those successful seaside resorts anymore,” Bart Chielens of Arcas tells us about the development of Duinenwater. With that philosophy, this district was designed as a new piece of Knokke. “As a village within the village, where peace, greenery and quality of life are central, just like the German urbanist Stübben envisioned it more than a century ago for Le Zoute,” says Chielens. DUINENWATER The project covers an area of no less than 38 hectares. With over 1000 apartments, 100 homes, 70 villas, a

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care centre and 25,000 m2 of retail space, this urban expansion of Knokke-Heist promises to become the one and only place to be on the coast. By analogy with the typical Knokke-Heist coastal architecture, the new resi-

dential site has a green and pleasant living climate. The architectural coding of sloping roofs, white-painted facades, red tiles, many wood elements and covered terraces in combination with the native vegetation creates a certain identity. “To this, we have added a number of architectural elements such as the bell facades, which are immediately recognisable as typical for Duinenwater,” explains Bert Chielens. “This means that people can identify with them and feel at home there too. That they are not in an anonymous block, but in a building and a site in which everything has its individuality and character. Here, you come to unwind. There is a real holiday feeling here.” The social and relaxing character of the Duinenwater (Dune Water) Estate is also emphasized by the commercial and catering facilities, the central square, the water sports club, the swimming pool with wellness and the brand new golf course called Golf Village. With 27 holes, the latter should become “a dream for golf lovers from all over the world”, we hear from the developer. The course was designed by the renowned Scottish landscape and golf course architect Steve Marnoch with in his team also our 12 | IMAGICASA

very own Dimitri van Hauwaert. A luxury hotel with conference facilities and restaurants will also be built on the golf course. According to the construction partners, this is a major asset for the golf community of

Knokke, where this new, prestigious golf course of international allure will soon be put to good use. MEERZICHT As should be clear to you at this point, the Duinenwater project will be a unique environment where it is good to stay. And we haven’t even taken a closer look at the resi-

dences on the domain! Imagicasa picked out the most impressive building on the site to highlight: Meerzicht (which translates into: ‘lake view’). The residence exists of two wings built around a beautifully landscaped courtyard garden. This peaceful oasis not only determines the green character of Meerzicht. “It is not a sterile garden, but there will be benches and there will be room for meeting and communication,” Bart Chielens tells us. Residents reach their private residence through a prestigious entrance area and this courtyard garden. At the same time, privacy is also an important feature of the project. The spacious and covered living terraces give the building not only elegance and grandeur, but also a certain intimacy. These homes therefore have something to offer for everyone. You can really make it a home, fully custom-made and finished with high quality materials. The apartments can be turned into a one, two or three-bedroom residence with the possibility of an extra bathroom or storage space. The front apartments have a frontal lake view and the central apartments overlooking the greenery also have a direct connection to the lake via the garden. The new home you’ve been dreaming of, located in a dream environment!

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ARCHITECTURE

Text: Caroline Meeusen

ICONIC ARCHITECTS

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Léon Stynen, deSingel, Antwerpen 1963 © Archief Léon Stynen

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“A FIGHT FOR A PROGRESSIVE ARCHITECTURAL CULTURE”

Léon Stynen, Huib Hoste, Renaat Braem, Maxime Brunfaut and Juliaan Lampens. All of them are names from Belgian architectural history that are permanently engraved in our memories. Their iconic Modernist designs influenced and inspired future generations and leave traces to this day. Especially for this edition, Imagicasa puts these top designers with their key Modernist works in the spotlight.

odernism was THE style of the previous century. The cultural movement resists the traditional ideas and forms of art, music, literature, religion and architecture. Architecture had to be innovative to better reflect the modern industrialised society. The architecture of the interbellum period was, of course, first completely dominated by the reconstruction after the First World War. A difficult task with divided approaches. Some opted for a reconstruction of the pre-war image. Modernist architects and urban planners, however, saw their chance to create contemporary architecture with innovative ideas. They sought technical perfection, adaptations to the physiognomy of the region and a contemporary aesthetic character. In Modernism, function takes precedence over form. The emphasis lies on the need for an architecture that meets the material, affective and spiritual needs of life. Brick constructions became very popular and concrete was the Modernist building material par excellence. Ornaments disappeared in favour of sober, geometric basic forms, flat roofs and materials such as reinforced cast iron, iron and concrete. One of the greatest Modernist names was the Franco-Swiss designer Le Corbusier. He is therefore called ‘THE architect of the twentieth century’. His name and designs are world-famous, but because we want to highlight the talent from our own small country in this edition, we focus on five Belgian Modernist architects whose works have gained a permanent place in the history of architecture: Huib Hoste, Léon Stynen, Maxime Brunfaut, Renaat Braem and Juliaan Lampens.

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HUIB HOSTE (1881-1957) Huib Hoste was the most important Flemish representative of the Modern Movement in Belgium. He worked in the studio of the Belgian architect Louis Cloquet. The Rationalist vision and neo-Gothic style of his teacher influenced Hoste in his early works like the Sint-Jozefskliniek (1910) in Bruges. Later, he was also inspired by the Dutch architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage and the Dutch avant-garde. He had fled to our neighbouring country during the Second World War. Eventually he was a member of the Comité Néerlando-Belge d’Art civique, a section of L’Union Internationale des Villes within which the reconstruction of the devastated Belgium was prepared. He fought for a progressive architectural culture. With his Cubist ensembles he introduced the neoplastic formal language to Belgium. This radical formal language reached an early climax in his design of Doctor De Beir’s house in Knokke (1924). From the second half of the 1920s onwards, Hoste, like most Modernists, was forced to concentrate on the construction of private homes for an enlightened public. His Modernism always remained robust. Besides architectural projects, Hoste also designed the interior and furniture for several houses. Like Van de Velde, he eventually founded his own company, Hoste-meubelen, for his specially refined tubular steel furniture.

A DYNASTY OF POLITICALLY COMMITTED ARCHITECTS LÉON STYNEN (1899-1990) Léon Stynen, you probably know him as the designer of the deSingel arts site, is the next one whose work we love to bring up. For more than fifty years he has been active as an architect, urban planner and designer all over the country, with a great predilection for his hometown of Antwerp. His career began with several competition designs in a Berlagian style. With his striking and diverse oeuvre and as chairman of the Orde van Architecten, he influenced generations of artists and architects. As for many, Le Corbusier was also a great source of inLéon Stynen, Sint Rita Church, Harelbeke 1962 © VAI

Stynen, Maquette Economisch Centrum de Wezenberg, Antwerpen ’69 © Archief Paul De Meyer. Collectie Vlaams Architectuurinstituut

spiration for Stynen. Many of his works, including deSingel, bear witness to a refined Brutalism and were intended as a tribute to Le Corbusier. Other famous buildings by his hand are the BP-building in Antwerp, the casinos of Ostend and Knokke and Cinema Rex, which was destroyed in the Second World War. All of them are key works of Modernism in Belgium. According to architectural critic Geert Bekaert, “a Belgian architect has rarely enjoyed a reputation like Stynen’s”. That is why last year, the Flanders Architecture Institute (Vlaamse Architectuurinstituut, VAi) put the iconic architect even more in the spotlight through various activities. Exhibitions took place and cycling and walking routes – which you can still follow – were organised. 18 | IMAGICASA

MAXIME BRUNFAUT (1909-2003) Architect and urban planner Maxime Brunfaut also deserves a place in this list of iconic designers. Together with his father Fernand Brunfaut (1886-1972), he belonged to the dynasty of politically committed architects. In this way, they became the ‘house architects’ of the Socialist Party. Brunfaut designed social houses, apartment blocks, garden districts, head offices of newspapers and political party organs, hospitals, and so on. All these programmes were linked to the rise of the workers and cooperative movement and all in a Modernist

style. His style was considered part of the ‘Nieuwe Bouwen’, the collective name for various architectural styles and radical innovations in architecture from 1915 to 1960. Issues such as transparency, space, light, functionality and symmetry were central to this. The Brunfauts believed that urban planning and architecture could serve as a lever for the economic and social emancipation of the people. Many of Maxime Brunfaut’s designs feature sculptures, bas-reliefs and frescoes. He believed that sculpture was equivalent to architecture. IMAGICASA | 19

Renaat Braem, House Of Humbeeck (1970), Buggenhout

RENAAT BRAEM (1910-2001) The Antwerp architect Renaat Braem was one of the most important representatives of post-war architecture in Belgium. In 1935, he even won the Godecharle Prize, one of the most important architectural awards in Belgium. With the prize money he went to Paris to follow an internship with THE architect of the twentieth century, Le Corbusier. In 1937, he became, thanks to his supervisor, member of CIAM, Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne, the brain of the international avant-garde in architecture. He immediately put the ideas of this group into practice. Braem’s first homes from the late 1930s were therefore based on Le Corbusier’s ideas and the principle of the ‘living machine’: homes that are almost as efficient as machines. In the early 1950s, his career got a huge boost thanks to important assignments such as the design of the social housing estate on ‘het Kiel’. This was one of the first large-scale post-war housing complexes that is still regarded as a milestone in the history of our social housing today. The following years were the most fruitful of his career with the realisation of large-scale housing complexes in Brussels, Leuven, Deurne and Boom as well as important public commissions for the city of Antwerp and numerous private homes. Braem’s vision was primarily aimed at promoting community cohesion and improving the lives of individuals. His designs balanced between reason and feeling, between rationalisation and the search for a poetic space. He was also not only a designer, but even published a book, Het Lelijkste Land ter Wereld (1968), in which he criticised urban planning, or rather the lack of it, in Belgium.

20 | IMAGICASA Renaat Braem, Middelheimpaviljoen, 1971, Antwerp

JULIAAN LAMPENS (1926) Juliaan Lampens studied architecture at the Sint-Lucas Institute in Ghent and then settled in Eke as an independent architect. In his early years, he still used a modernised traditional style. That all changed after the Expo 58. He focused on new architectural ideas and with the design of his own home (1960) he completely let go of the former architectural forms. He worked exclusively with the popular concrete architecture and developed a personal and unique style according to Brutalism. With his new approach, Lampens was also in line with the principles of Le Corbusier. One of the highlights in his oeuvre – and in post-war church architecture in Flanders – is the design of the pilgrimage chapel O.-L.-

Vrouw van Kerselare in Oudenaarde (1966). A successful and, for that time, innovative oeuvre that paid off in 1995 when he won the Grote Architectuurprijs van België under the praising words of the jury for his work: “Authenticity, intensity, spirituality, depth, completeness, self-evidence, timelessness, spatiality and exemplary.” These influential top names and designs show once again how proud we can and must be of our own architects and designers of the past and the present. You are probably wondering why one of THE biggest names of Modernist architecture, the ‘apostle of Functionalism’, Henry van de Velde, is missing in this list. No worries, further on in this magazine you can read his entire story. IMAGICASA | 21

PEOPLE

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Text: Eline De Mont

SETTING THE TONE IN STONE I try to be as conscious in life as possible, because tomorrow it can all be over,” Tanguy Van Quickenborne tells us. It may be a grand statement but so far, this philosophy brought the manager of natural stone company Van Den Weghe nothing but good. He turned 40 at the beginning of this year and can already look back on an extremely successful career. Fortunately, the busy man also knows how to make time for his family and his hobbies. And for us: Imagicasa spoke to him about the beautiful things in life.

he East-Flemish entrepreneur Tanguy Van Quickenborne took over the well-known natural stone company Van Den Weghe in 2010. And that at the age of 31 and after he had worked there for less than 5 years. We could say that it was written in the stars, but Tanguy has determined his own fate and he talks about it very naturally and down to earth: “After my studies at the Solvay Business School in Brussels, I always wanted to undertake something or take over a company. My father is a good friend of Philippe Van Den Weghe, the son of the original founder, and when he decided to gradually step down, I started talking to him. The intention from the start was to take over the company. That was a clear agreement and it actually went very naturally.” We talked to Tanguy Van Quickenborne about what his life has been like since then and tried to get to know the man behind Van Den Weghe better. THE ENTREPRENEUR The moment he entered Van Den Weghe, Tanguy Van Quickenborne knew that he would take over the company in the foreseeable future. However, this does not mean that it was not a challenge for the young entrepreneur. In the middle of the financial crisis, in 2010, he was suddenly at the helm of a large company, but he didn’t let that get him down: “We had to be very creative and inventive. We started innovating enormously and looking at the international picture. Personalising the company and offering a better service is something we really started to work on and after a few years it started to pay off.” For Tanguy, entrepreneurship simply means taking the plunge and you’ll see where you end up. Taking over a couple of other companies is also part of this company’s philosophy. Van Den Weghe now works together with Dominique Desimpel’s tile company, which produces beautiful objects that complement what the natural stone company does. Lanssens from Bruges, their biggest competitor, was also acquired under the watchful eye of Tanguy. “The market is converging and consolidating. If there are a number of coincidences on your path, you have to decide whether you do it or not. And we just went for it.” In 2018, he also joined the story of a technology company. He calls this ‘quite a revelation’ because it is so different from his ‘traditional’ job at Van Den Weghe, but according to Tanguy, the future of his sector lies in digitisation and the so-called smart economy.

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He says that there will be quite a few more acquisitions in the coming years and that Van Den Weghe will grow even more. Belgium is a very entrepreneurial country, despite the financial pressure (taxes, labour costs, etc.) that companies like Van Den Weghe regularly experience. “On the other hand, there is a good amount of great craftsmen, we speak three, four or five languages, we are open-minded and modest.” But isn’t the latter a potential pitfall, we ask our discussion partner. “We would do better to be a little more confident, but you shouldn’t shout from the rooftops that you are the best. We try to prove ourselves first.” These last couple of years, Tanguy Van Quickenborne and Van Den Weghe have really proved that they belong at the top. Some of the highlights and projects that truly stand 24 | IMAGICASA

out are the delivery of stone for the Louvre in Abu Dhabi and the collaboration with Jean Nouvel, the finishing of artist Luc Tuymans’s house in Antwerp, the various high-end projects they were able to do in Zurich and now also the residence in Miami of a well-known producer for whom they’ve been chosen to provide a lot of natural stone. We of course forgive Tanguy if he wants to shout it from the rooftops, he deserves the praise! THE ART AND DESIGN LOVER Thanks to his function Tanguy Van Quickenborne comes into daily contact with beautiful things. “That’s what makes my job so great, that it is truly interwoven with my passion for beauty, architecture, art and design. We ultimately do interior architecture. Every day I’m busy spotting new trends on colour, textures, drawings, ...

and we also work a lot with artists and designers,” explains the manager of the natural stone company. A visit to a museum or gallery in his spare time regularly ends up becoming a professional collaboration. Tanguy gives the example of the artist Pieter Vermeersch, who he got to know this way and who afterwards made a work with stone from Van Den Weghe. This is also how the work by Conrad Willems you see depicted here and which is made of 857 sandstone building blocks came to be. For those who might be wondering it right now: “No, my house is certainly not decorated in stone from head to toe, in our house we try to find a nice balance in various materials.” And those are combined with some unique works of art and design furniture. Besides a prototype table in wood by Maarten Van Severen – one of the first five pieces the designer made – you will also find some Emiel Veranneman chairs and daybeds and various design objects by Vincenzo Nobili. The extensive art collection includes works by Ron Gorchov, Joris Van de Moortel and Rein Dufait, among others. The collector in Tanguy is also involved in classic cars. His passion for beautiful things is once again expressed in the Italian cars of Alfa Romeo and Lancia. What fascinates him above all is “their unique design, sensual lines and that 50s, 60s and 70s atmosphere”.

THE FAMILY MAN We still wonder how his environment deals with his busy life and the energy he puts into his job and hobbies, but they don’t make a point of it: “Everyone is equally busy and is used to it from me. It’s not in my character to take it easier and slow down. I try to be as conscious in life as possible, because tomorrow it can all be over by.” Despite his full agenda, Tanguy makes enough time for himself and his family. These are moments he wants to enjoy as much as possible, even though it sometimes remains difficult. “Working doesn’t feel like working and you’re quickly spending too much time doing it. But I have a fixed pattern that I hold on to and that keeps everything in balance,” he tells us. That’s why he goes to work out at certain times and has his fixed days when he brings his children to school or picks them up. During the last Christmas holidays, he also happily set his work aside to go on a vacation with his family. Both professionally and privately Tanguy Van Quickenborne strings together the beautiful moments. This is a man who goes trough life positively and with great enthusiasm and who seizes all opportunities that come his way. We can learn something from that! IMAGICASA | 25