Servais-Spitz House

• Date 1955
• Address Vijverstraat, 54 – 3500 Hasselt

Built for a first cousin of Vandenhove, this house enabled Charles Vandenhove and Lucien Kroll to put their design philosophy into practice within the fairly standard framework of the ‘four-facade’ single-family home. Situated between vast expanses of farmland and the road network, the plot is spacious and wooded. The architects favoured volumes that turn their backs on the street. Built on a single level, the house is organised into three spaces centred around a hall accessible via a side path. Facing south, the dining room and study open out generously onto the landscape, with an industrial-style sunshade protecting them from the heat of the summer sun. Set back from the front, the kitchen connects to the garage and utility room – housed in a separate building – and the children’s playroom to the west. To the north, a section of the house is dedicated to the bedrooms, which are lit by strips of windows facing east and west.

In this residential neighbourhood characterised by rather unremarkable architecture, the architects have taken a different approach to the surrounding villas, adopting a modern design style of great simplicity, notably featuring white-painted brick walls and a variety of roof designs. This project also provides Charles Vandenhove with an opportunity to express his aesthetic convictions, with the architect creating two murals in the hall and the dining room.

Guest artist: Charles Vandenhove.

• Description of the collection

  1 folder containing a few photographs.

• Bibliography

  BEKAERT, Geert, VERSCHAFFEL, Bart, DERCON, Chris, Charles Vandenhove : art et architecture, Tournai, La Renaissance du Livre, 1998, p. 24

• AUTHOR AND DATE OF THE ENTRY Sébastien Charlier, 2021