Vincent Van Duysen’s Antwerp Home Lets The Architecture Speak For Itself

Rip & Tan: Tell us about your path to architecture. You were classically trained, but were you always drawn to this as a profession?

Vincent Van Duysen: My parents educated me across many different arts as a child so these were the primary influences for my appreciation and understanding of beauty. From a very young age, I fostered a natural talent for creativity. I chose architecture because it covered so many aspects of all of the applied arts, so in that sense it is an all-round field of study. However, it could have easily been photography, cinema, painting, dance. Architecture gave (and still gives) me the opportunity to express my creativity in many different ways and to contribute to the art of living.

Rip & Tan: When approaching a new project, where do you begin? What element of creating a home do you find most inspiring?

Vincent Van Duysen: Every project is different in context, location, relationships, program, and brief, so it is difficult to favor some. Besides, I always take a narrative into account when designing, and in that sense, my projects are building a sequence of a broader ‘picture’. Nevertheless, because you always create some emotional connection, there are some key projects that come to my mind like my holiday retreat in Portugal, Casa M.

Rip & Tan: As a modernist at heart, what is it about California modernism that inspires you? What’s the key to a modernist home that still feels warm and welcoming?

Vincent Van Duysen: As a modernist at heart, I always try to avoid clutter and artificiality and express the solidarity of architecture and its relationship to familiarity and simplicity. Through this simplicity, I try to achieve a sense of well-being that is directly related to the inhabitant their experience within the space. I am very influenced by modernist architects whose work was a cross-over of fluidity, sensuality, and material substance.

I’ve always liked architects that have or had a warm and contemporary approach with innovative uses of materials and adaptations to modern-day needs. In other words, those that are able to create a really strong dialogue between person and space. But it doesn’t have to be only architecture—I am also inspired by people who work with their hands, artisans, craftsmen; it could really be anything, a picture, a book, a sculpture, a movie, a person.

Rip & Tan: What tips do you have for people who want to update their current living space without embarking on a full-scale renovation?

Vincent Van Duysen: First and foremost, always try to respect the DNA or background of the space, it can be a living area or something else, but it has to be in line with its original character.

In my case, when I renovate or revamp a space, it’s a challenge for me to design without too much ostentation within any type of environment that already has a strong identity. There are elements that are part of an existing aesthetic that determines the kind of style I have to pick up on, yet it is important when renovating to add unique features that make a space different from any other.

Rip & Tan: Talk to us about the importance of contrast in a space. How do we create homes that feel balanced and livable?

Vincent Van Duysen: In my architecture, there’s always a balance between spaces that are bathed in light complemented by spaces that are darker, more subdued, and calming.

Since the beginning of my career—30 years ago—the most important thing has always been to consider architecture as a profession dedicated to humanity; and that means starting from the architecture of places, whose inhabitants need to feel protected and relaxed, right through to the furniture and the objects around them that are necessary for them to live a comfortable and happy life.

Rip & Tan: What’s something Belgian design and architectural style gets right that Californian style can learn from?

Vincent Van Duysen: Belgium has a rich history of arts and crafts from medieval times to the present—this is widely known. Although there is a strong sense of pride in industries such as linen and stone craft, what I find difficult about defining a Belgian “style” is that it becomes easily commercialized and reduced, essentially, to an export product.

Belgium is strongly cosmopolitan in both arts and culture and has a huge breadth of creativity—theatre, performance, dance, fashion, architecture—with participation by many but in varied and unique ways. I would say that the Belgian influence in my work is more about this collective individuality than a shared aesthetic or palette like the shared character of any other style, be it Californian or Mediterranean, or something else.

Rip & Tan: How do you define the art of living?

Vincent Van Duysen: To me the art of living means understanding how people live in their homes, to somehow discover a way of inhabiting a space, so that I can mold it, later on, into my works. I have never thought of interior design as being severed from architecture: interiors are architecture. Interiors and exteriors are closely interwoven.

I perceive architecture in a broader way. It is not only the physical construction of space but creating spaces for people to live in surrounded by art, furniture pieces, and objects. All these elements are part of this art of living that is part of my journey, a sort of gesamtkunstwerk. I am aware of the different scales of a project.

The art of living is also a compendious effort that encompasses passion and research and understanding of human needs together with channeling tactility, timelessness, organicity, texture, serenity, comfort, natural materials, light, and exquisite craftmanship.