Projecties 4 - Re: Collecting Landscapes

In their ‘Projections’ series, the Flemish Architecture Institute and deSingel provide a platform for existing research-by-design in Flanders. The guideline for the choice of projects lies in social topics and/or in questioning the role of the architectural discipline in society. The one single constant is the relevance of the research to Flanders.
 

In the nineteen-seventies the ideologically tinged middle-class salons, houses of the people, Flemish centres, guild houses and parish halls were replaced by cultural centres. These characteristic buildings, geared to multipurpose use and with a symbolically low threshold, were intended to represent the pluralist nature of government institutions. Now it is time they were given new substance.

In a research assignment commissioned by the Flemish Community, Labo A (Ghent University) is shedding light on the future of local cultural infrastructure in Flanders: cultural centres, community centres and libraries. The concepts of deconstruction, decorum and decoration help in asking a number of new questions and are an invitation to go into the research topic in greater depth. How can the materiality of architecture give shape to a public programme of requirements? What space is there left for community life in an increasingly private society? In what way does the government communicate with its public by way of its built heritage?