Critical texts and a detailed discussion of seven projects provide an insight into the oeuvre of De Smet Vermeulen Architects. The publication situates their work within the contemporary debate about the skill of the designer, which is the theme of the Belgian pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale.
After twenty years, a new monograph on the work of De Smet Vermeulen Architects is now available. Critical texts from independent authors and a detailed discussion of seven projects, by way of texts, drawings and photographs, provide an insight into their practice. Hans van der Heijden situates the architects’ oeuvre within the contemporary debate on the skill of the designer, which is the theme of the Belgian pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. With an emphasis on recent projects, this new publication illustrates the evolution of Henk De Smet and Paul Vermeulen’s work. At the same time, it also reveals how the context in which architecture is made has changed significantly over the last twenty years. Van Der Heijden demonstrates that this debate is not yet over, and that it should be conducted on the basis of physical oeuvres.
For the past five years, the Swiss publishing house Quart Verlag has been publishing De Aedibus international, a series of monographic books on contemporary European designers. De Smet Vermeulen Architects is the first Belgian practice to be included in the series.
The authors are the Dutch architect and architecture critic Hans van der Heijden, editor of the Architecture Yearbook in the Netherlands, and the British critic Irénée Scalbert, former editor of the leading architecture magazine AA Files. Also included are texts by the architects Henk De Smet and Paul Vermeulen. Architectural photographers Michael De Cleene, Dennis De Smet, Filip Dujardin and Frederick Vercruysse document the projects.
The book will be presented during the event ‘Bravoure: contributions from Flanders’ on 27 May 2016, and will be on sale in the bookshop of the International Architecture Biennale in Venice.
- English/German edition - ISBN 978-3-03761-128-9
- Dutch/ French edition - ISBN 978-3-03761-137-1