Juliaan Lampens, Jeroen Verrecht · Van Wassenhove House

Jeroen Verrecht

One of the crucial houses designed by Belgian architect Juliaan Lampens in 1972 (completed in 1974). It was built for Albert Van Wassenhove, a teacher and a bachelor with a highly developed interest in art and culture. This house of cast concrete, wood and glass, is situated in a middle-class residential area, near the city of Ghent.

Conceived as a home for one person, it is the archetype of the grotto, as architect Jo Van Den Berghe has put it: the house has a geological steadfastness; it creates a sense of security and protection and makes the world outside feel remote.