Since the start of his career, Charles Vandenhove has had the opportunity to undertake a wide variety of commissions, ranging from housing and commercial buildings to public infrastructure, whether cultural (museums, theatres, etc.) or administrative (offices, courthouses). The Ridderkerk project takes the Liège-based architect into new territory: the town hall. Generally regarded as a true urban landmark, the town hall has symbolised autonomy as well as local authority since the Middle Ages. The commission is therefore deeply significant for this small town of nearly 50,000 inhabitants, situated south of Rotterdam. The decision was taken to build a new town hall to replace the old building, which dated from the late 1970s; this was not demolished but was renovated by Vandenhove in 2005. The new building forms part of the city’s new masterplan and is situated on the edge of a large oval square, the shape of which is reminiscent of the site where the Singelkerk, the city’s historic church, stands. The two historic landmarks echo one another without actually facing each other. The complex includes offices and meeting rooms for the authorities and administrative services, but also has a cultural dimension, housing a theatre, a music school and several premises made available to local community organisations. Quite logically, the lobby serves as a dividing line between the two functions. The main façade, clad in yellow brick, follows the curve of the square and extends over three main storeys. Following the example of several interior projects such as De Zieken in The Hague or Catharinahuis in Eindhoven, Vandenhove employs the principle of the colonnade, which creates a sense of openness between the interior and exterior. At either end, two wings adopt the same materials and the same rhythm of solid and void elements. On the other side, towards Kaas Katerstraat, the architectural language is distinguished by a predominance of bay windows that define a two-storey wing. The interior design features certain ‘signatures’ of the Liège-based architect. The structural integrity of the building is, here, defined not by columns but by piers combining yellow bricks and concrete. The commission also involved the participation of numerous artists, including Luc Tuymans, Patrick Corillon, Jean-Pierre Pincemin and Léon Wuidar. Interestingly, the integration of works of art is not limited to a contemporary approach, as Vandenhove has reproduced works by Botticelli and Piranesi. As with many of his other projects, the architect has also made his mark on the public space by designing two majestic masts that punctuate the square and mark the location of the new town hall.
Guest artists: Alessandro Botticelli, Patrick Corillon, Jean-Pierre Pincemin, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Luc Tuymans, Léon Wuidar.
The Catharinahuis project forms part of a wide-ranging regeneration scheme for Eindhoven city centre, the masterplan for which was designed by Maastricht-based architect Jo Coenen. To link the various hubs of the neighbourhood, such as the Heuvelgalerie and the Smalle Haven, Jo Coenen is developing a new communal space opposite St Catherine’s Church and is focusing on a reconfiguration of the public space combined with the construction of a new building opposite the church. This building is intended to contribute to the revitalisation of the city centre by combining housing and retail spaces. Vandenhove, whose reputation in the Netherlands is well established, was awarded the contract for the building, which the property developer describes in a few key words: robust, high-quality and timeless. The building must also blend into its immediate surroundings whilst providing a link between the church and the Heuvelgalerie. Although the initial design was revised, Vandenhove proposed a building extending the length of the site over four storeys. The ground floor and first floor are reserved for retail and hospitality spaces, whilst the three upper storeys are intended to house 54 flats. The design proposed here by Vandenhove is based simply on a subtle interplay of volumes. A large rectangular block extends along Catharinaplein, whilst at the rear, two silos indicate the presence of the fire escapes and the lift shaft. These two volumes, discreet yet clearly identifiable, are reminiscent of a similar design feature in the Liège blood transfusion centre, built forty years earlier. Vandenhove also plays on the quality of the spaces and circulation routes. The building is preceded by a covered gallery providing a pedestrian walkway sheltered from the elements, whilst on the first floor a long glazed loggia offers visitors to the gallery a view of the public square. Adorned with red concrete elements, the façade stands out in the urban landscape and is distinguished by its balustrades, featuring a design by Jean-Pierre Pincemin etched into the glass.
At the end of 1989, the Stad aan de Stroom association and the City of Antwerp launched an international competition to build a large museum not far from the banks of the Scheldt, between the Bonapartedok and the Willemdok. The project, situated in the Eilandje area – a neighbourhood characterised by its docks and rich industrial heritage (part of which has been demolished, not without controversys) – aims to revitalise a vast space situated at the interface between the city and its port.
True to an approach that respects the Genius loci, Vandenhove has proposed a project that follows in the footsteps of the industrial buildings that have since disappeared. A vast hall extends horizontally across three levels. The basement houses educational spaces, a documentation centre and a conference centre. The ground floor is reserved for temporary exhibition spaces and visitor facilities (reception, toilets, bookshop, etc.). The permanent collections illustrating the history of the city of Antwerp are displayed on the first level and in a six-storey tower that serves as a landmark in the urban landscape. For the façades, Vandenhove employs a combination of glass and concrete. The horizontal section of the building favours concrete with inlaid bands of white marble. Natural light enters through a few openings in the façade but mainly via the roof, which consists of curved elements alternating between glazed and solid sections, reminiscent of the courtrooms in the Palace of Justice in ‘s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. Supported by concrete columns in Vandenhove’s characteristic style, the roofs consist of concrete shells clad in zinc on the outside. The tower is distinguished by large glazed bays that reveal the stairwells and offer a spectacular view to visitors ascending the floors. At the centre of the tower, an enclosed concrete core houses the permanent exhibition spaces. The competition, which attracted six entrants, was ultimately won by the Dutch firm Neutelings-Riedijck Architecten, and the museum was opened in May 2011.
Whilst finalising work on the Esther House, Vandenhove is focusing his efforts on a prestigious project: the conversion of the Hôtel de Woot de Tinlot, built in the 18thth century and situated on Rue Bonne-Fortune. Situated in the shadow of the cathedral, the building has served many different purposes and underwent a major refurbishment in the late 1980s, led by the architectural firm Audex. Consequently, when Vandenhove was commissioned to take over the project, he decided to start with a clean slate. After removing the most recent alterations, the architect set about converting what had been a vocational school into an elegant private residence. In the wing facing Rue Bonne-Fortune, Vandenhove retained the entrance porch, which serves as a partition between the caretaker’s accommodation and the spaces reserved for the client. On the ground floor, the partition walls were gradually removed to create a series of reception areas arranged in an L-shaped layout. On the other side of the garden, which features a terrace and a pond, a glass orangery on a stainless-steel frame with wooden joinery is reminiscent, on a smaller scale, of the gallery at the Palace of Justice in ’s-Hertogenbosch. The upper floors, accessed via a spiral staircase, feature a similar layout but are dedicated to private areas as well as a large gym reserved for the client, who is a keen sports enthusiast.
The Bonne Fortune project stands out in several respects within Vandenhove’s body of work. The richness of the materials and the quality of their execution far exceed anything the architect had previously achieved in a private residence. Vinalmont stone, Carrara marble and solid oak interact in perfect harmony, whilst not without a touch of flamboyance. The collaboration with artists also reaches new heights here, with nearly a dozen visual artists contributing to both the interior spaces and the courtyard. Notable among them are Daniel Buren, Jean-Pierre Pincemin, …
Guest artists: Charlotte Beaudry, Daniel Buren, Patrick Corillon, Sol LeWitt, Jean-Pierre Pincemin, Sophie Ristelhueber.
The Laeken CPAS project forms part of an urban regeneration scheme for a working-class neighbourhood in Brussels. The site, situated between the railway line and Rue Stéphanie, is home to a building housing offices and services, alongside eleven flats. Logically, the spaces open to the public and the CPAS offices are situated on the ground floor and first floor respectively. A true community hub serving the local population, the ground floor houses a homework club, a study room with a library and a community canteen. The layout of the spaces is logical and straightforward. The main entrance on Rue Stéphanie opens onto a hall which distributes access to the various ground-floor services housed in two volumes—whose floor plan resembles that of an apse—as well as to a corridor leading to the vertical circulation routes. The four floors of residential accommodation offer flats of varying sizes (from one to three bedrooms), as the CPAS aims to provide flats suitable for large families. Unusually for social housing, the architect’s involvement extends not only to the purely architectural brief but also to the fittings; Vandenhove was notably responsible for designing the kitchens. Another feature that enhances the project’s quality is a wooden terrace running along the top floor, which is set back and provides the flats with a lovely connection to the outdoors. The treatment of the façades also reveals some distinctive features, and the building presents two distinct faces. Facing Rue Stéphanie, the façade blends in seamlessly, with calm and modesty, without any break in alignment or scale. At the rear, however, the building adopts a more assertive stance, featuring an interplay of volumes dominated in particular by the two silos housing the vertical circulation systems, perhaps recalling the Blood Transfusion Centre, a project from his early career. For the building as a whole, Vandenhove combines small-grained granite, dark brick and timber. The façade also serves as a platform for expressing the ideals championed by the CPAS. Excerpts from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are etched into the sandblasted balustrades. In addition to the texts, this ambition to embody the humanist ethos of architecture is further highlighted by the work of Léon Wuidar, who designed various abstract motifs on the panelling of the social canteen.
In 1998, as part of a development project for the entire Villers-la-Ville Abbey site, the Walloon Region organised a European competition for the restoration and repurposing of the abbey farm, a listed building whose origins date back to the 16th century. The programme combines offices, garages and premises for archive storage, as well as spaces open to the public such as event venues, relaxation areas, catering facilities and group accommodation. Staff accommodation for a family is also planned. The first phase of the competition concluded with the shortlisting of nine candidates from across Europe, including Belgium, amongst whom were Atelier de l’Arbre d’Or, Daniel Dethier and Charles Vandenhove. Charles Vandenhove’s proposal is fairly simple and aims to be very unobtrusive in its intervention on the historic building. Logically, he has situated all the spaces open to the public (exhibition hall, restaurant, event spaces, etc.) on the ground floor. The first floor is reserved for offices and a few residential units, whilst the top floor is entirely dedicated to sleeping quarters. As for the façades, these are restored and do not undergo any major alterations, with the exception of the interior façades, which are repainted white, and a few reconstructions where the condition of the building requires it. The existing windows are retained, but a few new, discreet openings are planned, notably in the roof, with a few dormer windows in a contemporary style. Perhaps the most spectacular intervention is in the inner courtyard, where Vandenhove called upon Jean-Pierre Pincemin. The artist draws on the principle of polychromatic stonework, as implemented in the Staarzaal project, to create a composition evoking the design of French formal gardens.
Whilst Charles Vandenhove was mainly active in the Netherlands during the 1980s and 1990s, certain projects allowed him to return occasionally ‘home’. The commission for a detached house on Quai Sainte-Barbe, a stone’s throw from the Balloir, initially represented a break with the prevailing trend along the banks of the Meuse, which were being taken over by property developers seeking profit through the construction of apartment blocks all along the quays. In the late 1990s, the Esther House project reflected a new vision for the Meuse quays, where the human scale and sustainable mobility were being brought back to the fore. Commissioned by a lawyer, the house was built on the site of two garages on a plot nearly 7 metres wide, which necessitated a vertical layout of the spaces across five storeys. Vandenhove proposed a fairly simple separation of private and professional spaces: the offices and secretarial area are situated from the ground floor to the second floor, the large bedroom on the 3rd floor, and the kitchen and living room on the top two floors. Opening out widely onto the Meuse, the house features arched balconies and a large terrace on the 5th floor. Vertical circulation is provided by a lift and a spiral staircase illuminated by a glass-brick feature. Dominated by generous arched and glazed windows, the street-facing façade is characterised by a design of great clarity, where the materials—concrete, glass and wood—interact harmoniously.
The Esther House project occupies an important place in Vandenhove’s body of work and, through a whole series of fundamental elements and details, foreshadows later projects such as the Maison Céramique in Maastricht and the Terrasses de Saint-Gilles in Liège.
Getsewoud is a major housing development situated to the west of Nieuw-Vennep, a town located between Amsterdam and The Hague. The project comprises a total of 5,800 homes, entrusted to several – mainly Dutch – architectural practices, which are developing a range of architectural styles, from vernacular to boldly modern. Vandenhove’s design plays on different housing types, combining detached houses with apartment blocks. Dominating the development is a row of 54 semi-detached houses arranged in a U-shape around a green space bordering a body of water. The houses are flanked, along the project’s central axis, by a five-storey apartment block. The principle of circulation between public space and an internal courtyard—a hallmark of Vandenhove’s work—is also evident here, with a covered passageway (arvô) incorporated into the block. At first glance and from the outside, the dwellings appear rather unremarkable. The rather ordinary street-facing façades seem to suggest fairly run-of-the-mill homes lacking any real architectural intent. But it is on the rear façades that the project reveals its qualities. Facing south-west, the rear rooms open outwards thanks to generous windows and a terrace that extends from the first floor. This terrace is supported by a colonnade that provides a covered outdoor space at ground floor level. It is here, too, that some distinctive features of Vandenhove’s style come to the fore, such as the architectural concrete columns that punctuate the windows on the ground floor and first floor. Outside the complex, Vandenhove has placed two landmarks within the landscape. An octagonal tower houses a four-storey dwelling, whilst at the junction of the footpaths, a composition by Vandenhove reminiscent of Middelheim stands on a stone floor engraved with a text by Patrick Corillon. Whilst the majority of the dwellings are arranged around a large square, Vandenhove has also been commissioned to design nine villas on the edge of the lake. Although the project features a variety of building types, Vandenhove has developed a highly coherent design language, favouring bright red brick and rounded zinc roofs.
In 1995, the University of Groningen, a major city in the far north of the Netherlands, commissioned Vandenhove to design an extension to its Faculty of Social Sciences. The brief was very straightforward, combining lecture theatres and offices. The building was to be situated within the Hortustuin botanical gardens on a corner plot formed by two streets with distinct atmospheres. The Grote Kruisstraat is dominated by public buildings, notably a four-storey modernist-style block, whilst the Nieuwe Kijk in Het Jatstraat, which is more residential, is lined with small terraced houses. Vandenhove therefore designed his project to blend in as seamlessly as possible with its surroundings. Facing the residential street, two single-storey buildings are linked by a fully glazed structure that reveals a centuries-old weeping willow, the centrepiece of the Hortustuin’s natural heritage. On Grote Kruisstraat, the architect gradually aligns with the scale of the existing modernist building through two volumes of two and four storeys respectively, all connected to the neighbouring building by a fully glazed bay housing the stairwell. The formal language, characteristic of Vandenhove’s work, combines red brick, an architectural concrete cornice and a vaulted zinc roof. It is enhanced by an installation by Jean-Pierre Pincemin featuring plant motifs created using the sandblasting technique on glass.
The construction of the Wolvenschans housing development in Leek, in the province of Groningen, was the result of a competition in which Vandenhove was awarded first prize in 1992. The project forms part of the south-western expansion programme for the small town of Leek, which, in addition to the construction of 500 homes, involves a comprehensive approach underpinned by a development plan. This plan, drawn up by the Dutch firm Noordpeil, draws inspiration from the traditional landscape designs found in the Groningen region, whilst resonating with Vandenhove’s philosophy of rigour and symmetry. Water takes centre stage, with the various housing units arranged around it. To avoid any sense of monotony, Vandenhove plays with different housing types, drawing inspiration from the garden city model. On either side of the water feature, ten houses, set back from the road, each accommodate two two-storey detached dwellings. On the ground floor, a bay window extends the living room outwards. Further on, four clusters of terraced houses are arranged symmetrically, creating a view towards the Waterborg, a complex of five adjoining apartment blocks situated in the middle of a body of water. Stretching over five storeys, the complex – whose appearance is reminiscent of a castle surrounded by a moat (the developer Leyten points out that this is the first ‘new castle’ in the Netherlands) – houses luxury flats, each featuring spacious terraces. Despite this variety of layouts and sizes, Vandenhove unifies the complex with a restrained design rooted in local tradition, featuring generously proportioned gabled roofs. In this complex dominated by brick and red tiles, the architectural concrete elements that form the cornices and crown the chimneys lend a sense of cohesion to the whole.