{"id":200288,"date":"2022-09-07T14:30:24","date_gmt":"2022-09-07T18:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interiordesign.net\/?post_type=id_project&p=200288"},"modified":"2022-10-18T17:12:41","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T21:12:41","slug":"pieter-de-bruynes-townhouse-landmark-status-belgium","status":"publish","type":"id_project","link":"https:\/\/interiordesign.net\/projects\/pieter-de-bruynes-townhouse-landmark-status-belgium\/","title":{"rendered":"Pieter De Bruyne\u2019s Last Work Receives Landmark Status"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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On the third floor, Van Schuylenbergh\u2019s former painting studio now houses the Benares room divider, De Bruyne\u2019s largest piece of furniture, designed in 1978 and inspired by a trip to the Indian holy city. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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September 7, 2022<\/p>\n\n\n

Words: <\/span>Thijs Demeulemeester<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photography: <\/span>Tim Van de Velde<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Pieter De Bruyne\u2019s Last Work Receives Landmark Status<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

From the street, the Van Schuylenbergh House in Aalst, Belgium, looks quite anonymous. Except for an aqua garage door and a pavement-to-roof ribbon of indigo glass incorporating the front door, the white-painted brick facade doesn\u2019t stand out. Only upon entering does it become clear why this apparently modest, three-story residence has recently been landmarked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Built between 1979 and 1986, the town house is a postmodern Gesamtkunstwerk, the masterpiece of Belgian designer Pieter De Bruyne, who died of kidney disease at the early age of 56, a year after its completion. Except among a handful of connoisseurs, De Bruyne\u2019s name doesn\u2019t ring many bells today. His 175 interiors are hardly known; few have been preserved. None of his more than 200 furnishings and objects are still in production, not even his three lamps for Arteluce and two for Stilnovo. \u201cThere are no plans for reeditions either,\u201d says Stoffel Van Schuylenbergh, whose parents commissioned the house, in which he grew up and his mother still lives. \u201cAlmost all De Bruyne\u2019s furniture was made by his father\u2019s woodwork atelier, and never in editions of more than 10. Because of bad experiences with the industry, he didn\u2019t want to work with big foreign manufacturers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the dining area of the recently landmarked Van Schuylenbergh House in Aalst, Belgium, the masterwork of postmodernist designer Pieter De Bruyne (1931\u20131987), architecture and furniture blend into a true Gesamtkunstwerk.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Artist Lucas Van Schuylenbergh, Stoffel Van Schuylenbergh\u2019s late father, met De Bruyne, a graduate of Hogeschool Sint-Lukas Brussels, at an exhibition in the \u201960\u2019s. The two men became friends, and the artist began to collect the designer\u2019s work. \u201cWhen my father had about eight pieces, he decided to have De Bruyne create a house around the collection,\u201d the son continues. \u201cOnly trained as an interior designer, De Bruyne was obliged to work with local architect Achiel Hutsebaut, who was much more traditional.\u201d Nevertheless, for the first time De Bruyne was able to conceive a building in which architecture and furniture blend seamlessly. \u201cThe house is still 95 percent original,\u201d Van Schuylenbergh says. \u201cAs a child, I did realize that we were living in something special, something completely different from the houses of my school friends.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bathed in blue window light, the compact raw-concrete and painted-brick entry hall leads directly to the living-dining area, which sits under a steel-and-glass pyramid skylight. (In fact, only one half of a pyramid; De Bruyne used mirrors to make it appear complete.) \u201cThe house is a stack of geometric shapes, which also recur in his furniture: squares, circles, rectangles, and triangles,\u201d Van Schuylenbergh notes. The designer was fascinated by the forms and proportions of the architecture and furniture of ancient cultures, including the Mayan, the Indian, and, most importantly, the Egyptian. He made many trips to Cairo\u2019s Museum of Egyptian Antiquities to take precise measurements of the furniture there, including a Tutankhamun cabinet. \u201cMy research tells me that the Egyptians are the founders of both the grammar and the typology of furniture,\u201d De Bruyne said in a 1984 interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Furthermore, De Bruyne determined that pharaonic furniture was made to stand in isolation away from walls, lending it maximum spatial and symbolic impact, a practice he adopted for his own pieces. \u201cAnd yet he did not call them sculptures, because they do have a specific function,\u201d Van Schuylenbergh observes, which is is certainly the case with the Benares room divider, the largest piece De Bruyne ever created. Inspired by a trip to the Indian holy city, it was designed in 1978 specifically to display Lucas Van Schuylenbergh\u2019s collection of objects and curiosities, and now sits in the top-floor painting studio. The colossal cabinet is full of symbolism: blue for the sky, black for death, white for life, and fluorescent orange for the city\u2019s famous riverside cremation fires. \u201cOnce it was lent for an exhibition at the Design Museum Ghent,\u201d Van Schuylenbergh reports. \u201cThey had to use a crane to lift it out of the house. Fortunately, I wasn\u2019t there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Travel was a constant creative stimulus for De Bruyne. A visit to Mexico is reflected in such Mayan-influenced designs as 1979\u2019s Palenque 2, a superbly proportioned lacquered-wood and marble cabinet at the center of the solarium off the main bedroom. But Italy was his most frequent destination. Between 1955 and 1985, he made as many as 100 study trips to Milan, including an internship in the offices of Gio Ponti, where he worked on the design of of the seminal Pirelli Tower. Thus, De Bruyne had the talent and the right Italian connections to to work with the leading manufacturers in that country\u2019s booming modern design industry, which he did, a little, in the \u201960\u2019s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The pyramid skylight floating above the living-dining area epitomizes De Bruyne\u2019s obsession with the forms and proportions of Ancient Egyptian architecture and furniture.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

But mostly through the next decade he pioneered a rigorous, uncompromising version of what came to be called postmodernism. At the end of the \u201970\u2019s he received invitations to to collaborate with Studio Alchimia and Memphis Group, the nascent superstars of the iconoclastic movement, which could have led to his international breakthrough. De Bruyne did not accept. He found them \u201ctoo superficial and playful,\u201d and thought of their frivolous creations as \u201cforms without content.\u201d Ironically, his groundbreaking Chantilly cabinet\u2014a 1975 piece based on the meticulous measurement and analysis of of an 18th-century French bureau desk in the Mus\u00e9e Cond\u00e9 in France\u2014was the highlight of \u201cPostmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970\u20131990,\u201d a major exhibition at London\u2019s Victoria & Albert Museum in 2011. The landmarking of the Van Schuylenbergh House may be another sign that De Bruyne\u2019s recognition quotient is finally on the rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The residence was designed around artist Lucas Van Schuylenbergh\u2019s existing collection of De Bruyne furniture, though some pieces, like the dining table on wheels, were created specifically for it. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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De Bruyne collaborated with local architect Achiel Hutsebaut on the house, its rear elevation influenced by Le Corbusier. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The front door\u2019s colored glass and handle are among the few elements that hint at the wonders behind the modest street facade.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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With its trio of little pyramids, the living-area fireplace continues the references to Egypt; the pendant fixture above the 1971 glass and padauk-wood coffee table is one of three lights De Bruyne designed for Arteluce in the \u201960\u2019s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Looking up through the skylight reveals that the house is a stack of three geometric forms: a square, a triangle, and a cylinder.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The skylight is really a half-pyramid made to look whole with mirrors; located on the second floor, it borrows daylight via a quarter-circle of glass bricks set in the terrace above.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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In the main bedroom, the wardrobe and vanity are built-in, while the stacked cabinet is freestanding since, like most De Bruyne furniture, it is meant to be viewed from all sides.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The foot of the built-in bed incorporates a cabinet containing a projector for watching movies.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Palenque 2, a 1979 cabinet named for the ancient Mayan city, another strong influence, commands the solarium off the main bedroom.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Following brutalist principles, De Bruyne used raw concrete for the stair and other structural elements. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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A 1996 abstract artwork by Van Schuylenbergh hangs in the stairwell.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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On the third floor, Van Schuylenbergh\u2019s former painting studio now houses the Benares room divider, De Bruyne\u2019s largest piece of furniture, designed in 1978 and inspired by a trip to the Indian holy city. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Expansive glazing and glass bricks on the roof flood the top-floor landing with light, which penetrates the lower floors.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The same color glass, a De Bruyne signature material, illuminates the second-floor stair landing leading to the bedrooms; the sconce is by Gino Sarfatti for Arteluce.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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In the garden, a graphic metal arcade echoes the geometric forms of the house. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n