Renovatie panden Leysstraat

The development of the Leysstraat with a group of apartment buildings was part of a late nineteenth-century project for the enhancement of Antwerp. The opulent and eclectic façades were inspired by a particularly rich version of Netherlandish Mannerism and, in keeping with this, the apartment interiors were also graced with an abundance of ornamentation. Bovenbouw have reconfigured the historic layout of the building to create eight new apartments. To achieve this, the architects merged some of the existing spaces and rethought the circulation areas. The new plan entails a radical transformation of the typical nineteenth-century arrangement of salons and smaller spaces, thereby establishing alternative connections between the individual rooms. Rather than introducing utilitarian doors, the new openings take advantage of some of the existing elements that had become obsolete. These include the ornate fireplaces, for example, which were treated both as found objects and as framing devices for the transition from one space to another, both accentuating the threshold and providing it with a monumental surround. In other situations, the fireplace was reworked into a small usable room, closet or accessible space, or became an internal window with a framed view beyond. The formal elements of this nineteenth-century bourgeois dwelling have acquired a new but not entirely definitive meaning and become set pieces in the domestic landscape. As a result of the interventions, the apartments are better suited to the requirements and preferences of contemporary urban dwellers.

Christoph Grafe

This project is published in Flanders Architectural Review N°13. This Is a Mustard Factory