Christian Kieckens
Christian Kieckens is one of that generation of architects who contributed to the image the world has of Flemish architecture of the 1990s as conceptually rigorous, innovative and purist. His creations inspired by fashion, dance, graphics and contemporary art and his architectural works, together with those of some of his colleagues, carried the reputation of Flanders abroad. He received us in his office on the Quai du Commerce, in Brussels’ old dockside neighbourhood. The arrangement of his workspace is clearly representative of this architect’s particular talent. His buildings, like his interior designs, have been conceived in a spirit of minimalism with such sobriety and abstraction as to render them works of contemporary art as much as architecture. No formalist posturing here: form and individuality of expression disappear almost completely, subsumed into the service of the interplay of geometry, space and light.