Lecture / congress

Research Day 2025: Hors Catégorie

“Dit is een theatrale architectonische flop” © Collectie Vlaams Architectuurinstituut - Archief Dries Jageneau
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20 November 2025
09:30h - 19:00h
DE SINGEL (Muziekstudio), Antwerp
Book you ticket(s) here

On Thursday 20 November 2025, the Flanders Architecture Institute organises its annual research day in De Singel in Antwerp. Entitled Hors catégorie, it explores how archival classifications shape – but also limit – our understanding of design heritage.

Hors Catégorie

This year’s edition explores how archival classifications shape – but also limit – our understanding of design heritage. How do we categorise objects, disciplines, and forms of authorship and what blind spots are produced through these systems? How can we consider practices that elude, transcend, or contest conventional institutional and historical classification? What to do with practices hors catégorie?

Programme

The programme of the research day consists of a keynote performance, three thematic sessions with national and international guests, and a keynote lecture by Anna-Maria Meister.

  • 09.30 – 10.00 Welcome by Dennis Pohl (director of the VAi) and introduction by Janno Martens (researcher at the Knowledge Centre)

  • 10.00 – 10.30 Keynote performance by Pia Jacques

  • 10.30 – 12.15 Session 1: Sourcing the archive
    • Elodie Degavre (UCLouvain)
      “Just ignore the camera”. Revealing processes: the challenging yet rich terrain of family and television archives
    • Javier Fernández Contreras (HEAD – Geneva University of Art and Design)
      Screens Within Screens: The Architecture of Social Media
    • Eline Inghelbreght (KU Leuven)
      Counter-Imaginaries of the City: Activist Magazines and Alternative Visual Narratives in Brussels’ Urban Planning (1970s-80s)
    • Rixt Hoekstra
      What source for what history? The Rietveld-Schröder House from his-story to her-story and the debate on legitimate sources.
  • 12.30 – 13.30 Lunch

  • 13.30 – 15.00 Session 2: Classifying the archive
    • Tiphaine Abenia (Université Libre Bruxelles)
      Toward a De-standardized Material Archive: The Sitterwerk Case
    • Carole Kojo (CIVA, Brussels)
      Thinking, classifying. Finding? Library classifications in the 21st century
    • Stefanie Korrel and Ernst des Bouvrie (Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam)
      Asterisk*: enriching archives and collections
  • 15.00 – 15.15 Break

  • 15.15 – 16.45 Session 3: Performing the archive
    • Sina Brückner-Amin, Mechthild Ebert and Manuela Gantner (KIT Karlsruhe / saai archive)
      From object to process – and back again: model building as a cycle of architectural insight in the work of Conrad Roland
    • Laura Lievevrouw (KU Leuven) and Breg Horemans (KU Leuven / TAAT collective)
      On the lost and living gestures of the architect: two perspectives into archiving
    • Gjiltinë Usufi (KU Leuven)
      Unarchived Therefore Unwritten: Disclosing Microhistories in the Prison of Gjilan, Kosovo
  • 16.45 – 17.00 Break

  • 17.00 – 18.00 Keynote lecture by Anna-Maria Meister (KHI Florenz / KIT Karlsruhe / saai archive)

  • 18.00 – 19.00 Drinks

Practical

  • DATE:

    20.11.2025

  • HOUR:

    09:30u - 19:00u

  • LOCATION:

    DE SINGEL (Muziekstudio)

  • ADRESS:

    Desguinlei 25, 2018 Antwerpen

  • PRICE:

    €30 Standard
    €5 Students

  • ORGANISATION:

    Flanders Architecture Institute

  • CONTACT:

There are spaces reserved for wheelchair users in all halls of DE SINGEL. Please contact us in advance at janno.martens@vai.be so that we can reserve a space for you. You can use an elevator to reach the halls. Enter through the main entrance of DE SINGEL and make your way down the ramp to the left of the stairs to take the lift. Read more about the accessibility