Clear Magazine 2003

It has been said that modern architecture has lost its way. Buildings erected more for the edification of those who build them than those who live and work in them. Many buildings are not even really designed by true architects – an engineer and developer team up with a general contractor and little thought is given to the actual design, instead the budget pertaining to dollars per square foot is the ruling factor – design usually comes in a distant second. Thankfully a new breed of architect is emerging – one that has little regard for a career based on ego or pure gain – architects whose work can be described in terms such as natural, sensual, honest, experiential and emotional. Maybe we are learning that good design does stand for something deeper and that a well designed environment can make a difference in our lives….the concept is pretty simple really. Vincent Van Duysen’s oeuvre spans architecture, interior and furniture design with a sense of completeness and clarity of vision that recalls the gesamtkunstwerk tradition of “total work of art” that thrust his native Belgium to the forefront of avant-garde design at the turn of the nineteenth century. Although far from the swirling organic lines and swelling forms of the Belgian art nouveau architects, Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde, Van Duysen’s strict rectilinear creations draw inspiration from, and echo the discipline, his predecessors showed over a century ago – Van Duysen’s simple yet sensual designs have a preference for primary forms and compact volumes. His style is self-described with a long line of adjectives: flat, simple, clear, but also pure, elementary, essential, minimal, and silent, quiet, relaxed.

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