House Van Wassenhove

Juliaan Lampens

Sint-Martens-Latem, Brakelstraat 50

1972 – 1974

House Van Wassenhove

I was fascinated by Lampens architecture for a long time. This year the news came that you could visit a home from him and even rent it as a B&B. There were no dates for tours on the website of museum Dhondt-Dhaenens. A few months after I signed up for their newsletter, the redeeming news: new dates were known. And the rest is history … It was an interesting tour, but very short! We drove longer, one way, than we were able to stay inside the building. But that was the only negative point, the property is very fascinating.

Architect Juliaan Lampens

Architect Juliaan Lampens, born in 1926, studied architecture at Sint-Lukas in Ghent. In 1950 he started a traditional architectural firm. His style changed completely after a visit to Expo 58. He designed a house for himself in 1960 with architectural influences from Scandinavia, Japan and Le Corbusier. He didn’t travel much and got the most information from architecture magazines. He finds bunkers on the Atlantic coast the best examples of brutalism. Lampens found, following the example of Japanese architecture, that architecture should be able to bring peace, for example with the pond on the terrace. He has built 35 houses in his architectural style. Most owners still live there …

Client Albert Van Wassenhove

Van Wassenhove was a teacher and interested in art and literature. After visiting the chapel of Kerselare, he asked Lampens to design a house in the same celebratory style. Albert was single, so no extra bedrooms were needed. The plot land was hilly and had no view. It is located in a residential area in Sint-Martens-Latem and the building regulations prescribe a sloping roof. Juliaan Lampens does indeed use a sloping roof, but in the form of stairs. He used the slope of the landscape, only the entrance was dug. The house is 1m20 higher than the street level.

Concrete cover

Juliaan Lampens has viewed the interior as a landscape with a concrete roof as a cover. This roof is subdivided into three parts and this is reflected in the split inside. The higher located working and sleeping area with bathroom, the living room with kitchen and the covered terrace. All living functions overlap, which was a revolutionary way of life in the 1960s. There are no walls up to the ceiling, so there is a reunification of an open feeling and intimacy.

Furniture

A number of functional zones were given their own distinctive shape. The bed is placed in a wooden cylinder that looks like a mega furniture and can partly be seen in the living room. The kitchen is defined as a triangle. The desk is in a square that is retracted above the rectangular dining room table. Around this table are stools, which can also be used as a cupboard or table, designed by Lampens in 1970. He also designed furniture and kitchens for most of his houses. Lampens wants to create a unity between architecture and interior.

Material

Lampens works almost exclusively with concrete, wood and glass. Only the floor, the sleeping cylinder and the built-in wardrobes are in pine, all the rest is rough concrete. The property consists of a U-shaped concrete shell, open to nature. You do not see the frames of the glass sections, as a result of which you get the feeling that outside runs in and vice versa. The rear facade is also closed with just a staircase to the lower floor. In this floor are carport, storage rooms, toilet and cloakroom.

Discover

You can stay in the building from the end of April to the end of September. It is very pricey: from 2 nights € 500 for a maximum of 2 people.

Slightly cheaper is a guided tour: € 80 for a maximum of 20 people; there are also days for individual registrations.