The architecture of Juliaan Lampens goes
beyond conventional living and is instead suggestive
of the utopist avant-garde of living without
barriers.
In 1950, the architect set up his own business in
Belgium, in the village of Eke on the outskirts of
Ghent. Having been profoundly influenced by
his experience of the 1958 Brussels World's Fair,
Lampens subsequently made a radical change of
course and built his own house in 1960, which
represented a major turning point in his career.
As he once stated: "Every healthy Belgian visited
the World's Fair. It was due in part to the
world expo of modern architectural styles that
such work became accepted and established in
Belgium."
Lampens worked almost exclusively with concrete,
wood and glass. Formally, his homes were
designed to showcase an interior and exterior
harmony with their surrounding environment
and nature. Borders, cardinal orientation and
lines of sight were all central to the placement and
construction of the home. Typically, Lampens's
houses are closed to the public on one side but
are otherwise completely open to nature, with
the result that there is always a formal exchange
between transparency and closure.
He constantly tried to reach an absolute reconciliation
in the antagonism between Le Corbusier's
whimsy and Mies van der Rohe's control. He
also had deep admiration for Oscar Niemeyer,
Romanesque architecture and the bunkers along
the Atlantic Wall. For Lampens, these constructions
on the Atlantic coast constituted the most
beautiful examples of brutalism: "The integration
with the sea and the nature is just perfect."
Though not directly associated with brutalism,
the architecture of Juliaan Lampens stands as a
significant variant of this style: materially in his
use of raw concrete, and formally in his deployment
of the bunker typology. For some time he
experimented with raw concrete in order to
develop his style of bunker-like exteriors combined
with open vistas and sculptural motifs.
Lampens's idea of living was based on various
features to form a complete open plan without
pillars or even walls, and all the rooms were
placed so they seemingly conjoined with each
other (kitchen, living room, bedrooms and bathroom
all in one open space).
Unlike the bourgeois insistence on individuality
and patriarchy, this style privileges community
and equality within the living space while focusing
on life together as a family unit as a way of
returning to a more basic way of living.
The clearest manifestation of these ideas can
be found in the Vandenhaute-Kiebooms house
(1967). Here Lampens took his architecture to
the extreme. The absolute openness inside the
building encouraged the family (a couple with
their four children) to live together in a space
that is devoid of acoustic or perceptual privacy.
A 14x14 metre square – realised in concrete and
glass with a very radical open plan – is protected
by a concrete hanging roof that is placed 2.6
metres above floor level and rests on just two
slender steel angle beams. The house is totally
open on the south and east sides, allowing for
its orientation towards a panorama of fields.
Screening from the street is accomplished by
means of a concrete wall and the fact that the
house is built below street level. The only fixed
elements within the house are three half-closed
concrete cylinders that rise from the floor to
stand at the same height as the client Gerard
Vandenhaute. Behind these are situated the
bath, the toilet and the staircase to the cellar.
Dropping down from the ceiling to act as a counterpoint
to the cylinders is a hanging concrete
square which descends to shoulder level in order
to demarcate the kitchen area. The spatial division
is completed, however, with the work surface
which floats out into the living area to become
the dining table.
Aside from this minimal number of fixed elements,
the living structure can be freely organised
beneath the roof. The sleeping units are
composed of beds with adjoining cabinets. The
result is a kind of "sleeping niche" that is not
fixed into the ground, and hence allows for the
continual reshaping and re-imagining of the
space and its degrees of privacy.
Lampens's domestic architecture has proven
hugely successful, not least because his houses
are often still inhabited by their original owners.
Various families who have lived and grown
up in his buildings have stated how Lampens's
architecture has the unique sense of space where
you live together both with nature and as a family
community.
Angelique Campensbr />
Juliaan Lampens, was born in 1926 in De Pinte,
near Ghent, Belgium.
He founded his own
architectural practice in Eke
in 1950 after studying art
at the Higher Institute for
Art and Vocational Training
of the Sint-Lucas School in
Gent. Greatly influenced by
his experience of the modern
architecture exhibited at
the 1958 Brussels World's
Fair, Lampens went on
to elaborate his personal
vision of architecture. His
"brutalist" houses, almost
domestic fortresses, are
introverted units, but also
open to merging with the
surrounding nature.
In 1995 he was awarded
the Lampens Belgian Award
for Architecture.
Juliaan Lampens
A fundamentalist vision of living a shift of perception: harsh spaces inspired by raw concrete bunkers become harmonious, classical private places.
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- Angelique Campens
- 15 June 2010
- Sint-Martens-Latem