Collection

Dufays House

  • Date 1969
  • Address Rue de Loneux, 27 – 4670 Saint-André (Blégny)

With the Dufays house, Vandenhove returns to the concept of a weekend home, a project he had previously developed in Provence with the Merveille house. Here, the setting is the Pays de Herve, a hilly landscape characterised by orchards. This project was the subject of much careful consideration on the architect’s part. Originally, the house, resting on a square plinth, was organised around a cross-shaped floor plan. Beneath a flat roof, the house extended out onto terraces covered with sky-domes, much like the Schoffeniels House. Vandenhove subsequently revised the design. Set back from the road and on a gently sloping plot, the house rests on a masonry plinth whose plan, with its apses, is reminiscent of a basilica. The house has two storeys. In the semi-underground basement, the service areas comprise the entrance hall and the garage. A spiral staircase – the design of which foreshadows the one the architect would later create for the Hôtel Torrentius – leads to the main floor, comprising two bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, the living room, the dining room and the kitchen; these spaces are arranged symmetrically around a central axis. Two large bay windows flood the living areas with light and open out onto the large terrace, which forms a walkway encircling the house. The materials chosen by the architect are simple and inexpensive, in particular the concrete blocks left in their raw state both inside and out. As for the roof – a fundamental structural element in the architect’s design – it consists of two slopes that do not meet, leaving space for skylighting. Made of corrugated asbestos-cement sheets, it rests on a metal framework whose tubes clearly echo the structural elements of the university hospital’s glass roof.

  • Description of the collection

    Drawings, full plans, correspondence, a photographic record…

     
  • Volumetry 2 boîtes d'archives (0.24 m)
  • Bibliography

    BEKAERT, Geert, « Maison à Saint-André » in Environnement, n° 11-12, 1971, p. 429-433.

    BEKAERT, Geert, « Maison à Saint-André » in L’architecture et l’architecte, Charles Vandenhove, Liège, Pierre Mardaga éditeur, 1976, p. 116-121.
  • AUTHOR AND DATE OF THE ENTRY Sébastien Charlier, 2021