Ad Hoc Baroque: Marcel Raeymaekers’ Salvage Architecture in Postwar Belgium (ENG)
Arne Vande Capelle, Stijn Colon, Lionel Devlieger, James Westcott, Rotor
Rotor, 2023
€45,95
Marcel Raymaekers (°1933) was a household name in a large part of Belgium from the 1970s to the 1990s. More than an architect – although he was not technically qualified for one – he dreamed up and sold noble dreams to Belgium’s growing middle class through his business empire The Queen of the South, an unlikely mix of antique storeroom and nightclub/restaurant. estaminet’/jazz location. For almost 50 years, Raymaekers bought and restored thousands of tons of antique building parts and reused them in hundreds of buildings of his own design. These elements, without exception impressive in their craftsmanship and materiality, were – and still are – a testimony to material cultures of the past and the staggering number of buildings demolished in Belgium since the end of the Second World War. From the 1960s onwards he created an extensive oeuvre with materials such as boulders from the Maas valley or columns and porches from demolished churches. This extensive application of reuse allows him to connect with age-old building traditions, but also makes him an outsider in his time, a pioneer of circular construction.
ISBN: 9789464776652
