After nearly two decades at the Flanders Architecture Institute in Belgium, director Sofie De Caigny steps down this summer. She spoke to the British architecture magazine Architect's Journal about the Flander’s architectural scene, her favourite UK firms and winning work in Belgium. The article also presents Dennis Poh, from April 2024 the new director of the Flanders Architecture Institute.
This summer, Sofie De Caigny will hand over her role as director of the influential and much-admired Flanders Architecture Institute (VAi).
De Caigny, a trained architectural historian with a PhD from the University of Leuven, has spent 18 years in the renowned Antwerp-based VAi – six of those as its director.
For comparison, the VAi has been likened to the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland here in the UK - although it is an independent organisation and does not sit under the wider Federation Royale des Societes d’Architectes de Belgique umbrella.
Nevertheless, it has punched well above its weight, becoming a player on the global stage with its events, lectures, debates, publications and exhibitions bringing architecture to a wider audience.
Last month De Caigny, 47, was among the RIBA’s nine honorary fellows named for 2024, in recognition of having ‘taken the VAi in an extraordinary and standout direction’ including through her curatorship of two show-stopping architectural exhibitions: 2016’s ‘Maatwerk: Architecture from Flanders and the Netherlands’ in Frankfurt; and 2023’s ‘As Found: Experiments in Preservation’, first in Antwerp then in London.
The Belgian academic also served as secretary general of the International Confederation of Architectural Museums (ICAM) from 2014-2022, is a visiting architecture professor at the University of Antwerp, is currently a member of the World Heritage Commission of the city of Bruges, and has published widely on architectural culture in Flanders, including as editor in chief of the Flanders Architectural Review.
"Flanders creates good soil to grow quality architecture"‐ Sofie De Caigny, director Flanders Architecture Institute
De Caigny has witnessed and showcased how Belgium’s Dutch-speaking northern region has been shaped by architectural interventions from ‘super interesting’ small-to-medium-scale home-grown projects, to scaled-up ‘higher level’ imports from UK practices including Caruso St John and David Chipperfield.
An authority on procurement, De Caigny puts the strength of Flanders’
architecture tradition in large part down to its ‘progressive’ tender
system which, after overcoming a major existential threat almost a
decade ago, is now thriving and continuing to attract British as well as
Belgian architects.
The so-called ‘open call’ competitions system, developed by the Flemish Government Architect, has been hailed as among ‘the most progressive architectural cultures in the world’. But it was nearly scrapped in 2014 by Flanders’ then newly elected coalition government.
The outcry that followed, including from international admirers of the Flanders system, ‘behind the scenes’ policy influencers and more than 1,000 members of the public who gathered at the VAi for a debate around the role of the government architect, showed people ‘really cared’, says De Caigny.
This backlash led to the decision to keep the Flemish Government Architect, endorsing a system which De Caigny claims actually ‘came out stronger’ in the end and still gives ‘smaller, younger offices’ the chance to win commissions for major public buildings. The approach means procurement criteria often ‘leave room for experiment’ in architects’ designs, and the vlaams bouwmeester will further liaise with commissioners to champion projects that are culturally rich and environmentally forward-thinking.
As De Caigny says, ‘If you can create a good soil, then it’s easier to grow beautiful flowers.’
It is unsurprising the RIBA has recognised De Caigny. Her in-depth knowledge of architecture stretches beyond borders.
Asked how our system differs, she answers: ‘The UK is much more capitalised, and, just in general, the power of development and all the economic forces behind even one competition [mean] it’s a different game.’
Yet while Flanders frequently epitomises ‘small is beautiful’, De Caigny believes UK architects have imported a skillset traditionally ‘lacking’ in the area.
According to De Caigny, the UK sits shoulder to shoulder with Germany and the Netherlands – and a big step ahead of Belgium – on its delivery of larger projects, including the regeneration of former industrial sites, large-scale residential, and ‘massive developments around railway stations’.
Middle scale or small scale interventions
‘If you look at the website of VAi, what you would see is very interesting, middle scale or small scale interventions,’ she explains, ‘but at a bigger scale, we don’t have this tradition.’
De Caigny cites DRDH, which has offices in Antwerp and London, as an example of a UK firm doing exemplary ‘bigger-scale’ housing and restoration in Belgium.
The practice’s completed projects in the country include its acclaimed retrofit of the 13th-century De Bijloke Music Centre in Ghent, and a 36-home apartment complex for the elderly in Aarschot, Flanders, co-designed with Architecten de Vylder Vinck Tallieu following an international competition commission.
The VAi director reels off a list of other UK practices whose Belgian projects she admires – Tony Fretton, David Chipperfield and Sergison Bates among them.
She insists other UK practices are well placed to enter competitions in the country, given that issues around ‘the recognition of British architecture degrees after Brexit [appear to be] solved now’.
But the growing number of threats to UK construction are casting similarly dark clouds across the channel, she believes.
She says the scene in Belgium is experiencing an equally prolonged slump with medium-sized practices in particular struggling for commissions amid a general landscape of ballooning prices, project stalls and postponements.
De Caigny says the period of pessimism coincides with a ‘bottom-up movement of young architects’ fighting for better salaries –their poor pay further exacerbated by the ‘gender consequence’ for young women of risking a career hit by having children.
‘[Young architects are] really making a lot of noise about all these issues,’ says De Caigny, adding: ‘They’re right, and they should do so.’
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