Collection

Middelheim Pavilion

  • Date 1984-1992
  • Address Middelheim Park, Antwerp

Launched in 1984, the project for a pavilion to be built in Middelheim Park reflects the architect’s reputation in the 1980s. The structure he designed was to be situated in the Middelheim Open-Air Museum, alongside sculptures by Rodin, Wouters and Moore. The funding arrangement involved the City of Antwerp and the Liège-Namur Small Granite Quarries Association, with the latter supplying all the materials required for the project. Tensions soon arose between the quarry operators and Vandenhove, as the latter wished to build a pavilion out of solid stone rather than veneer. These differences led to the project being shelved for many years, and it was not actually completed until 1990. The monument proposed by Vandenhove is characterised by its uncompromising rigour. The pavilion rests on a perfect square with 8-metre sides, formed by a modular grid covered with small granite slabs. Along this grid stand 32 pillars, each 3 metres high, connected by architraves. Signifying the entrance to a structure reminiscent of a temple (Bekaert refers to the hypostyle hall of the reception temple at the Pyramid of Khafre in Giza), yet vastly different from it, a portal comprising two cylindrical columns with stylised Ionic capitals is surmounted by a pediment. The design was slightly revised, and the portal was given a life of its own as a sculptural element in its own right, engaging in a dialogue from a distance with the peristyle. Whilst, compared to his earlier projects, the Middelheim Pavilion may seem trivial, it nevertheless represents a new approach that established Charles Vandenhove not merely as an architect but also as an artist. This approach is also evident at the same time in the studies he carried out for the project for the vestibule and the royal salon at La Monnaie in Brussels, a body of work reconstructed for the major exhibition dedicated to the architect at the Berlage Exchange in Amsterdam.

  • Description of the collection

    Plans, sketches, specifications, correspondence, photographic records…
  • Volumetry 1 liasse
  • Bibliography

    Charles Vandenhove, An Architecture of Density, Liège, Pierre Mardaga, 1985, p. 117.

    BEKAERT, Geert, ‘An Architect of the Century’ in BEKAERT, Geert, VERSCHAFFEL, Bart and DERCON, Chris, Charles Vandenhove: Art and Architecture, Tournai, La Renaissance du livre, 1998, pp. 51–54.

    VERSCHAFFEL, Bart, Charles Vandenhove, architecture / architectuur 1954–2014, Tielt, Lannoo Publishers, 2014, pp. 170–177.
  • AUTHOR AND DATE OF THE ENTRY Sébastien Charlier, 2021