KELCHTERMANS LIZE GEWAD BY VENS VANBELLE/REBIRTH

KELCHTERMANS LIZE
MASTERSTUDENT UHASSELT, FACULTY ARCHITECTURE
ARCHITECTUUR
2015
GEWAD BY VENS VANBELLE/REBIRTH OF A COSTUME SHOP
GENT, 2011
A hundred years ago it was not so hard to imagine how to live your life: you were
looking for a suitable partner, got married and bought a house. Nowadays various
aspects led to new housing typologies as the fragmented Flanders, the pressure on
the open space, the aging population and the need for a more social consciousness
and society.
Gewad, a design of Vens Vanbelle, seeks his own way to a new form of society. With
his brother and parents, Maarten Vanbelle bought a burnt out shop. Vanbelle and
his business partner Dries Vens , designed four apartments in the previous costume
shop. The architects break with the traditional building of residentials by creating ‘a
home’ feeling. They do this partly by not limiting the apartments to one floor and let
all four of them border to the street, patio and backyard. On the other hand to allow
each entrance to a shared piazza. A fragment from Terres des Hommes by Antoine
de Exupery (1939) fits well for me with the feeling that arouses within this space:
‘Ce n’est pas la distance qui mesure l’eloignement. Le mur d’un jardin de chez nous
peut enfermer plus de secrets que le mur de Chine, et l’ame d’une petite fille est
mieux protegé par le silence que ne le sont, par l’épaisseur des sables, les oasis
sahariennes.’
Photography © Vens Vanbelle
The semi-public interior space refers to an Italian courtyard where a game of seeing
and being seen predominates. This is further enhanced by the large mirror of polished aluminum on top of the vide and the scattered appearance of balconies , terraces and windows.
For me the distinction between space and place is an interesting aspect of this project. Whereby space represents the abstract space and geometric relationships. Place as a personal experience of spatial action and a reflection of values , feelings and
desires. The architects achieve with their courage and sense of dynamics an interesting symbiosis between public and private something which to me is an important
task for today's architect.