Christian Kieckens has been a key figure in the redefinition of recent architectural discourse, in Belgium and particularly in Flanders. He did so as an architect but also, and perhaps even more importantly, as a professor, as a curator and as a promoter of disciplinary culture at various levels, first and foremost through the foundation Stichting Architectuurmuseum S/AM, which he founded and directed together with Marc Dubois from 1983 to 1992. Kieckens actively contributed to the idea of an open and international culture, based on historical knowledge and continuous theoretical reflection. This approach was by no means common in 1970s Belgium where Kieckens was trained and where an entirely different paradigm of the profession was prevalent, much more local and much less intellectual, based on personal and political contacts rather than on the substance and quality of architecture ¹ See: Marc Dubois, “La posizione sociale dell’architetto”, in Belgio. Architettura, gli ultimi vent’anni, Electa, Milano 1993, pp. 22-23. .
In this context, the journey was one of the most important practices for Kieckens, first as a means of direct knowledge and then as a way of transmitting and activating this knowledge. As it can be framed on the basis of the epistemological theories of Michael Polanyi and Harry Collins, this is a primarily tacit kind of knowledge, of a social and cultural character rather than architectural ² See: Michael Polanyi, “A Society of Explorers”, in The Tacit Dimension, The University of Chicago, Chicago 1966, p. 53; and Harry Collins, “Relational Tacit Knowledge e Collective Tacit Knowledge and Social Cartesianism”, in Tacit & Explicit Knowledge, The University of Chicago, Chicago and London 2010. On the basis of Polanyi’s epistemological reflection, Collins further elaborates on the aspects related to relational, social and cultural knowledge. . The journey thus became a way of broadening one’s own horizons, but also those of the professional culture of the time, in Flanders and at the same time in the European context. Indeed, travelling allowed to identify and study new references, but also to establish new contacts with colleagues and clients.
Images played a crucial role in this process. By means of different media such as photographs and slides, postcards, cut-outs and illustrated books, images gave form and substance to the immediate experience of the journey, enabling its archiving, or collection, consultation and communication both over time and space. It is no coincidence that images were so present in Kieckens’ practices, in his archive as well as on the large black panels that he used systematically in his studio and at the university, as a design and teaching tool. No longer circumscribed to a series of abstract ideas and principles, architectural culture thus became a constellation of shared references. These buildings – visited, studied and photographed – were ultimately reduced to their own images, through which they travelled and disseminated, becoming fundamental vectors of disciplinary knowledge.

The Italian Journeys and the Exhibition Architetti (della Fiandra)

Kieckens began his architectural journeys while he was still a student at the Sint-Lucas School of Architecture in Gent at the beginning of the 1970s. At a time when “the general tendency among architecture students in Belgium was to travel to northern countries” ³ Interview with Marc Dubois by the author, Gent, 25 May 2022. , Kieckens travelled upstream to the south, primarily to Italy. In the early 1970s, Kieckens first visited Milano with Pieter De Bruyne, his mentor and professor in Gent, who introduced him to Milanese design culture ⁴ Pieter De Bruyne, artist, designer and interior designer (1931-1987). Since the 1950s, he had exchanges and contacts with Milano, where he did an internship at Gio Ponti’s studio, and where he participated in several exhibitions and awards. He was a professor at the Sint-Lucas school in Gent and was a fundamental reference for the education of Kieckens, with whom he established a close friendship. After De Bruyne’s death, Kieckens lived and worked for several years in his house and office in Aalst. . Kieckens was not the only one moving in this direction: his friends and colleagues – Marc Dubois, Marie-José Van Hee, Paul Robbrecht and Hilde Daem, but also Klaas Goris – all looked towards Italy ⁵ See: Caroline Voet et al. (eds.), Autonomous Architecture in Flanders: The Early Works of Marie-Jose Van Hee, Christian Kieckens, Marc Dubois, Paul Robbrecht and Hilde Daem, Leuven University, Leuven 2016. Dubois, Van Hee, Robbrecht, Daem and Kieckens are often identified with the term “generation ’74”, because they all graduated that same year in Gent. . Sometimes they travel together and in any case they regularly exchange destinations, suggestions and addresses in various forms. The hundreds of postcards sent by Marc Dubois to Kieckens, often reworked with the addition of clippings and collages, have been systematically collected and archived. They constitute a fundamental documentation of the journeys undertaken in those years ⁶ Kieckens had prepared digital scans of Dubois’ postcards for a possible publication entitled [PC_MD_CK], which was never realised. In Kieckens’ digital archive at the VAi there are several proofs updated over the years with front-back reproductions of more than 300 postcards. In the final colophon of these proofs, the ‘basic graphic design’ is attributed to Hans Gremmen, Amsterdam, while everything else seems to have been followed personally by Kieckens. . The postcards sent by Dubois show the destinations and trajectories of these journeys, but also and above all the way of looking of the travellers, their cultural, as well as visual and aesthetic fascinations. They are personal postcards but reflect a substantially shared, collective culture, thus shedding new light on the wide context in which a certain set of ideas originated and then developed.
The route to Italy was often based on family precedents and customs, as well as on a cross-cultural bond thatwas widely diffused and embedded even outside the sphere of architecture. The Italian journey became the hallmark of a community of practice that, albeit with different personal perspectives, shared a certain common disciplinary approach. Klaas Goris, for example, some ten years younger than the “generation ’74”, travelled to Italy to study the relationship between architecture and landscape ⁷ Goris’s work on landscape would proceed further in the following years, also and above all through his professional activity with his practice Coussée-Goris, which later became Coussée-Goris-Huyghe. The 2019 exhibition at the VAi entitled Natura Naturans, on which Kieckens also worked, is perhaps the most significant outcome in this respect. . In 1979 Goris visited Villa Lante in Bagnania and the Sacro Bosco in Bomarzo, which was not yet open to the public, and then in 1984 he spent a period in Milano, at the Politecnico, where he dedicated to studying the thought and works of Pirro Ligorio. The results of these researches were published in the S/AM bulletin in 1986 as part of a monographic issue dedicated to Rome and curated by the same Kieckens ⁸ For the cover of the issue, Kieckens prepared the collage Roma memoria, a planimetric collage of Roman buildings showing the decisive influence of Colin Rowe’s ideas and of American Urban Design of those years. Additionally, Kieckens also wrote the opening text of the issue. See: Christian Kieckens, Roma Nuovum Forum, and Klaas Goris, Pirro Ligorio en het Descriptio Silentii, in: “S/AM Bulletin”, anno 3, numero 3, July-August-September 1986, pp.1-5 e 8-10. .
Italy was not only interesting for its historical heritage, but also for the architectural and artistic culture of the period, for the exhibitions on display and for the dynamic editorial scene ⁹ In Kieckens’ archive at VAi there is a substantial collection of travel materials. Along with maps, guidebooks and address lists, tickets and brochures of visited exhibitions are also stored in boxes. In Italy, the cultural dynamism of the Seventies and Eighties is closely linked to the political and economic climate of the time. At this time, new investments in culture were made possible by the end of reconstruction spending and by the particularly favourable economic trend. The crucial public role played by architecture in the early post-war years contributed to securing it a particularly prominent place in this landscape. The numerous exhibitions and events that were organised, in particular the Triennale di Milano and the Biennale di Venezia, played a crucial role in the subsequent development of the discipline and the profession, for which theoretical and cultural positioning became increasingly important. Belgium, and in particular Flanders, experienced a moment of similar dynamism a few years later than Italy. In the Belgian and Flemish context, this cultural re-activation had great significance also on the level of identity, against the background of the historical division of the country into three linguistically but also politically separate regions. . In those years, Italy was in fact the ideal centre of the disciplinary exchange between Europe and the United States: architects and scholars such as Robert Venturi and Colin Rowe visited the country and made it the subject and focus of their theoretical reflection, while at the same time fundamental events were organised, such as the Triennale Architettura Razionale in 1973, the Biennale Europa/Americain 1976, and the exhibition Roma Interrotta at the Mercati di Traiano in 1978. Such architectural exhibitions and events certainly played a decisive role in triggering this series of journeys and exchanges. In addition to seeing the architectures of Palladio, Kieckens regularly travelled to Veneto and Venezia to visit the Art and Architecture Biennale, first as a tourist, in 1980, then as a contributor, in 1985, together with Paul Robbrecht, Hilde Daem and Wim Cuyvers, and then again in 1991 with the project Le ali del leone for Piazzale Roma ¹⁰ In 1985 Kieckens participated, together with Paul Robbrecht, Hilde Daem and Wim Cuyvers, in the 3rd Venice Biennale di Architettura curated by Aldo Rossi and entitled Progetto Venezia. They developed together a design proposal for the site of Rocca di Noale entitled What a Poem Knows. Kieckens’ subsequent project Le ali del leone (The Lion’s Wings) was instead developed for the competition Una porta per Venezia (A Gateway to Venice) organised as part of the 5th Biennale di Architettura curated by Francesco Dal Co in 1991. The competition boards were later exhibited in the same year at the Belgian Pavilion in the Giardini as part of the exhibition Architetti (della Fiandra). .
1991 was the decisive year in which all the journeys and contacts established in the previous decades materialised in the exhibition Architetti (della Fiandra), staged at the Belgian Pavilion of the Giardini as part of the Biennale curated by Francesco Dal Co. The exhibition, conceived by Dubois and designed by Kieckens, presented and promoted to an international audience the works of a group of young Flemish architects who had few competitions and realisations to their credit but were beginning to delineate a varied and dynamic Flemish disciplinary landscape. They are Luc Deleu & T. O.P. Office, A.W.G. – bOb Van Reeth, Stéphane Beel, Paul Robbrecht & Hilde Daem, Marie-José Van Hee, Henk De Smet & Paul Vermeulen, Xaveer De Geyter, Giedo Driessen-Jan Meersman-Jan Thomaes. As a sort of epilogue, Kieckens  displayed his recent competition proposal for Venice.

The Godecharle Prize and the trajectories of Baroque architecture

Italy, nevertheless, was not the only destination of Kieckens’ travels. In 1981, Kieckens won the Godecharle Prize ¹¹ The Godecharleprijs is a prize founded in 1871 by Napoléon Godecharle in memory of his father, the sculptor. Won by Victor Horta in 1883, it is awarded every two years to three Belgian artists in the fields of sculpture, painting and architecture. The prize consists of a scholarship valid for two years with which the winners can organise study and research journeys abroad. and used it to arrange a thematic trip through Bavaria and Bohemia. The main focus of the journey was the architecture of the Dientzenhofer, Giovanni Santini, Balthasar Neumann and Dominikus Zimmerman. Kieckens became interested in Baroque architecture following once again in the footsteps of Pieter de Bruyne, who organised an exhibition at the Sint-Pieter Abbey in Gent in 1975 with a series of student drawings and graphic analyses of Baroque architectures, but also of Paolo Portoghesi, whose studies on Borromini and Baroque Rome were published in Italy respectively in 1967 and 1978 ¹² See: Paolo Portoghesi, Roma barocca. Roma: Carlo Bestetti, 1966 and then Milano: Laterza, 1978. and Francesco Borromini. Milano: Electa, 1967, 1977, 1984. . These were important references also for Paul Robbrecht. While Kieckens was focusing on Santini and Central European Baroque, he was in Rome to study Borromini ¹³ Interestingly, two years before Kieckens, in 1979, Paul Robbrecht was also awarded with the Godecharle Prize and used it for a journey to Italy, to the Veneto region and to Vicenza, where he studied the architecture of Palladio. It was there that he came into contact with the Centro Internazionale Studi Andrea Palladio, of which he attended the courses and became a member. This same research track would soon be followed by Klaas Goris, who won a scholarship to attend the ‘History of Architecture’ congress of the CISA in 1983. .
During his journey, Kieckens initiated an important work of photographic documentation of central and southern European Baroque architecture which he was to continue for the rest of his life. His photographs of Baroque interiors, all framed from the same point of view, from the bottom upwards, were later published in a portfolio – a box of loose images printed on thick paper – and were displayed in the exhibition Lichtkoepels – Lantern Views organised at the S65 Gallery in Aalst in 1995.
The work on Baroque architecture was also published by Kieckens in digital format on his website, alongside a series of thematic collections focusing on his interests and travels. Among them: Swiss skies and mountains, as found, arcades of Milano (an homage to Aldo Rossi), Berlin, projects and works of art, Brussels, Venezia, Swiss architecture and its details ¹⁴ See: Kieckens, Christian, IMG_BW, 4_IMG_CH, 5_IMG_AS FOUND, 7_IMG_MILANO, 11_IMG_BERLIN, 16_IMG_ART, 2_IMG_BAROCK, 13_IMG_BXL, 18_IMG_VENEZIA, 3_IMG_SWISS, CKA-BOOKS, Brussels 2007-2014. Pdf digital publications at: http://www.christiankieckens.be/en/publications/ebooks/ [accessed 9 November 2022]. . As it emerges from the testimonies of his collaborators, Kieckens’ collection of slides, the ones from which these repertoires are assembled, has always played a fundamental role within his library, as a source to be consulted and a tool to be operatively used for the design ¹⁵ Interview with Karen Van de Steene by the author, Antwerpen, 5 October 2022. Karen Van De Steene worked with Kieckens from 1997 to 2007 and remembers the key role of the slide archive from the time when Kieckens was based in Aalst in Pieter De Bruyne’s house and office. .

The S/AM Architectural Touroperations and the Antwerp University Studiereizen

One of the first initiatives promoted by the S/AM Foundation since its establishment in 1983 was that of Architectural Touroperations, a series of excursions and trips for the members of the association. The destinations included Vienna, Berlin, the Canton Ticino, Como and Milano, with visits to Aldo Rossi’s schools in Broni and Fagnano Olona. In parallel to the organised trips, the bulletin of the S/AM also provided information for other architectural visits to be independently undertaken, for example to see the villas of Palladio and the contemporary architectures of Canton Ticino, whose addresses and telephone numbers were made available to the readers. This is exactly what Kieckens and his friends regularly did among themselves, but which was shared in this way with a wider audience.
Travelling was the primary means by which to experience architecture, both ancient and contemporary, as well as its places, regions and cities. Architectural Touroperations were attended by architects, enthusiasts and friends. They disseminated a specific knowledge of architecture but also a new awareness of the civil and social value of the profession, in a moment and context in which this seemed to have been largely forgotten ¹⁶ See: Marc Dubois, “Il panorama architettonico delle Fiandre”, in Belgio. Architettura, gli ultimi vent’anni, Electa, Milano 1993, pp. 43-50. .
The openness of these events further allowed the construction of new professional opportunities ¹⁷ Interview with Marc Dubois by the author, Gent, 25 May 2022. . This is the case, for instance, of the Van Middelem-Dupont house, realised by Álvaro Siza in Oudenburg, near Ostend, between 1997 and 2003, with the local support of the same Kieckens. It was with this project that Kieckens met Roberto Cremascoli, an Italian architect based in Porto, at that time collaborator of Siza, with whom he established a relationship of deep appreciation and long lasting friendship. This lead to several significant collaborations over the years ¹⁸ In addition to the teaching and lecturing at the ADSL seminars organised by Kieckens in Antwerp, Roberto Cremascoli was also involved with the monographic exhibition Het huis, De mentor, Het archief organised at the VAi in 2016. .
The S/AM tours were therefore an opportunity to build a network of architects not only local, but belonging to a closely interconnected international community of practice. This is precisely what was to happen later and on a larger scale with the establishment of the Bowmeester in 1999 and then, the following year, of the Open Oproep, or Open Calls, a governmental but also cultural instrument for the selection of publicly relevant projects which was based on the Dutch model but also on experiences such as that of the S/AM. This instrument had a crucial influence on the development of disciplinary culture in Flanders and on the quality of its architectural production ¹⁹ First Vlaams Bowmeester, Flemish Government Architect, was bOb Van Reeth, who remained in office from 1999 to 2005. Van Reeth, with whom Kieckens closely collaborated for many years at the University of Antwerp, was very influential in the initial definition of the Open Oproep system. . The Open Oproep gave also to many international architects the opportunity to design and build in Belgium and Flanders, with procedures and conditions that were quite exceptional on the European scene.
In 1988, Kieckens started to teach on a permanent basis at the University of Antwerp, by that time still known as Hoger Architectuurinstituut van het Rijk, and immediately began to structurally integrate the instrument of travelling into his teaching programme ²⁰ All the documentation on Kieckens’ courses and teaching activities is collected in: Christian Kieckens, MASTER STUDIO CK_TEACHING 1982-2016 / Verwoorden #2. Lesopdrachten van Christian Kieckens aan masterstudenten architectuur 1982-2016, CKA-BOOKS, Brussels 2017. Pdf digital publication at: http://www.christiankieckens.be/en/publications/ebooks/ [accessed 9 November 2022]. . Starting from 1992, Kieckens’ study trips were held annually until his last course in 2016. The destinations of the trips were extremely substantial: of the 24 organised trips, 12 were to Switzerland, particularly Germany, to Basel, Zurich and Chur, 6 to Milano and 5 to Germany, with some detours to Venice, Vienna and Portugal. Kieckens did not limit himself to a superficial knowledge of places, but frequently returned to the same cities in order to study them further and record their evolution over time.

Alongside his position in Antwerp, Kieckens also taught for shorter periods at other European faculties. Between 1999 and 2002, he was at the same time at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven and at the Architectural Association in London, where he established a number of important contacts, in particular with the group of architects including Tony Fretton, Jonathan Sergison, Stephen Bates, Mark Pimmlott, Andrew Houlton, Stephen Taylor, Jonathan Woolf, Tim Ronalds and William Mann ²¹ With regard to the relationship between Belgium and England, the case of William Mann is particularly significant. Before founding his firm Witherford Watson Mann in London, Mann worked for many years in Belgium. He worked briefly with the Kieckens office in the early 1990s, following the Oudenburg project together with Kristoffel Boghaert and Karen Van de Steene, and then worked for another 10 years with Robbrecht en Daem. Together with Sergison Bates, Tony Fretton, and Maccrenor Lavington, he is among the British architects who have participated in the Open Oproep on several occasions, succeeding in realising a number of important realisations in Flanders. In this regard, see in particular: Lucas Antonissen, Continuity and the Everyday in Architecture: Four British Practices Working in Flanders, in “arq: Architectural Research Quarterly”, volume 25, no. 4, December 2021, pp. 304-323. . Kieckens accomplished here a particularly interesting operation: on the one hand, in London, he set up a course almost entirely based on Swiss architecture, also organising a study trip to Basel, Bregenz and Vals in March 2001, while on the other hand, in Eindhoven, he invited his British connections for a seminar of lectures entitled New British Architecture in the April of the same year. Kieckens drew freely from the different disciplinary cultures with which he came into contact: he critically sifted them, he reciprocally promoted them and related them to each other.
The influence of this travelling and networking in Kieckens’ teaching is decisive and is reflected first and foremost in the large number of exchanges, internships and working periods abroad undertaken by his students during and after their studies in Antwerp. Among them are, for example, Dirk Somers, who did his Erasmus at the Politecnico di Milano, Adinda Van Geystelen, who moved to Zurich after her master’s degree for a study period with Hans Kollhoff at the ETH and an internship with Gigon Guyer, and then Steven Schenk, who graduated from the Accademia di Mendrisio, collaborated with Miller and Maranta and eventually became assistant of Emanuel Christ and Christoph Gantenbein in Zurich. These were important but nevertheless temporary formative experiences, after which the tendency was to return to Belgium to set up one’s own business or to pursue one’s career.

In a similar way, Kieckens himself was not the type of the stateless traveller, but he systematically brought back the knowledge he acquired while travelling, both academically as well as professionally. The international ADSL seminars at the University of Antwerp, conceived and organised by Kieckens from 2007 until his retirement in 2016, provided the opportunity to bring his international network of contacts in Belgium and work with them for a week together with the master’s students ²² The ADSL seminars, still active nowadays, are organised each year on a specific theme on which all invited lecturers are asked to reflect together with the students during a week-long workshop. The first themes proposed by Kieckens were: urban scenography, sampling, serendipity, happiness, congruence, transformer, dissolution, absence, on certainty, consistency. Among the many international architects and professors invited by Kieckens over the years were:: Rubens Azevedo and Julian Löffler, Roberto Cremascoli, Job Floris, Christoph Grafe, Aleksanra Jaesche and Andrea di Stefano, Frazer Macdonald Hay, Gennaro Postiglione, Marcel Meili, Florian Beigel, William Mann, Akos Moravansky, Jos Bosman, Alexander Baertscher, Lorenzo Bini, Josep Bohigas – Daniel Cid, Graeme Brooker, Helena Casanova – Jesus Hernandez, Christian Fröhlich, Spyridon Kaprinis, Kei Portilla Kawamura, Sally Stone, Wilfried Kühn – Simona Malvezzi, Jürg Conzett, Oliver Thill, Ellis Woodman, David Kohn,Mark Pimlott, Anne Holtrop, Cino Zucchi, Andrea Branzi, Philippe Rahm, Irina Davidovici, Florian Fischer – Reem Almannai, Tony Fretton, Christian Rapp, Brandlhuber+, Véronique Patteeuw. These themes and names effectively describe the substance and extent of the disciplinary culture orchestrated and transmitted by Kieckens through the instruments of the journey and then of the seminar. For complete information on the seminars and for Kieckens’ introductory speeches, see: Christian Kieckens, MASTER STUDY CK_TEACHING 1982-2016 / Verwoorden #2. Lesopdrachten van Christian Kieckens aan masterstudenten architectuur 1982-2016, CKA-BOOKS, Brussels 2017. Pdf digital publication at: http://www.christiankieckens.be/en/publications/ebooks/ [accessed 9 November 2022]. . This was a fundamental moment of exchange and transmission of disciplinary knowledge. At the same time, again through his travelling, Kieckens built up a number of long-lasting professional collaborations, such as the one with the Swiss Günther Vogt, with whom he was awarded and then realised the design for the crematorium in Zemst in 2011, his last and perhaps most relevant public project. Significantly, the competition was organised in the form of the Open Oproep, the system that Kieckens himself had contributed to inspire by means of the S/AM almost forty years earlier.

Kieckens’ journeys and the community of practice of the Bruine Banaan

In a recent interview ²³ See: Arnaud Tandt and Dirk Somers, Dirk Somers: Ik Hou Van De Schizofrenie Van Ons Vak, 2018. Digital publication at:http://www.nav.be/artikel/1308/dirk-somers-ik-hou-van-de-schizofrenie-van-ons-vak/ [accessed 10 November 2022]. , Dirk Somers borrowed from Stefano Boeri the term Blue Banana ²⁴ Besides the use of the term made by Stefano Boeri, to whom Dirk Somers refers in the interview with Arnaud Tandt, the Blue Banana, also known as the European megalopolis or as the Liverpool-Milan axis, is a term based on the economic and demographic studies carried out by the French geographer Roger Brunet and his research group RECLUS in the late Eighties. The term first appeared in an article by Josette Alia on the Nouvel Observateur and was in turn related to an earlier expression formulated by French politician Jacques Chérèque. , i.e. the main European conurbation stretching from London to Milano via Flanders, Switzerland and Germany, and coined Bruine Banaan in relation to a transnational geographic region characterised by a common disciplinary culture. This is exactly the geographical and cultural context of Kieckens’ travels and references.
In Somers’ interpretation, the colour brown refers to the earthy character that seems to characterise the materiality of contemporary architecture in these countries, largely made of bricks and concrete. Behind this material affinity, there is actually a series of deeper and more substantial common themes, such as the interest in the existing urban context and its fragmentary character, the search for a possible continuity with the architecture of the past, both on a typological and material level, but also the reflection on the ordinary, on the as found, the operative affinity and direct relationship with artistic practices, the concern with the articulation of form, tectonics and detailing, the use of historical references by means of quotations, associations and analogies.
From a disciplinary and cultural point of view, this vast panorama of parallel themes actually constituted the common ground between a number of otherwise different and distant local figures and communities. It was and still is – it seems – their key connecting element. The nature of this approach to the discipline has been extensively analysed over the last few years, especially with regard to Flanders, also in relation to the affinities and connections with a number of foreign experiences, both European and international ²⁵ See: “Rereading History: Conversation between Tom Avermaete, Sofie De Caigny, Christoph Grafe and Daniel Rosbottom”, and “Prelude: Conversation between Sofie De Caigny, Jantje Engels, Christoph Grafe and Marius Grootveld”, in Maatwerk / Made to Measure: Concept and Craft in Architecture from Flanders and the Netherlands, edited by Sofie De Caigny, Flanders Architecture Institute VAi and Deutsches Architektur-Museum – DAM, Antwerpen and Frankfurt Am Main 2016, pp. 207-223, 224-230, but also: Irina Davidovici, “Communities of Practice: Reflections on a Latter-Day Flemish Tendens”, in Bovenbouw Architektur: Composite Presence. Biennale Architecture 2021, edited by Sofie De Caigny, Dirk Somers, Maarten Van Den Driessche, Flanders Architecture Institute, Antwerpen 2021, p. 28; Christoph Grafe, “Hybrid Practices: A Few Thoughts on Organic Intellectuals in Architecture”, in The Hybrid Practitioner: Building, Teaching, Researching Architecture, edited by Caroline Voet, Eireen Schreurs, Helen Thomas, Leuven University, Leuven 2022, pp. 29-36; Lara Schrijver, “Breathing Life into Bricks: The Legacy of the 1970s”, in Autonomous Architecture in Flanders: The Early Works of Marie-Jose Van Hee, Christian Kieckens, Marc Dubois, Paul Robbrecht and Hilde Daem, edited by Caroline Voet, Katrien Vandermarliere, Lara Schrijver, Sofie De Caigny, Leuven University, Leuven 2016, pp. 13-18. . Conversely, little attention seems to have been paid so far to the dynamics and operative modalities – especially visual ones – that have contributed to its emergence and diffusion. Travel certainly represents one of these.
In their various forms and modalities, with the tools and media that have been associated with them from time to time, Kieckens’ journeys not only contributed to a change of paradigm in the Flemish context, but they were also fundamental means for the construction of a transnational community, both in establishing the social network of contacts and relations that constitutes its basis, as well as in defining and disseminating its themes and theoretical contents. In its traits and boundaries, this community of practice corresponds exactly to that of the Bruine Banaan mentioned by Dirk Somers, a community that is still vital today, and whose understanding seems crucial for tracing the dynamics and the migrations of contemporary disciplinary discourse in Europe.

Bibliography

Antonissen Lucas, Continuity and the Everyday in Architecture: Four British Practices Working in Flanders, in «arq: Architectural Research Quarterly», volume 25, n. 4, December 2021, pp. 304-323.

Collins Harry, Tacit & Explicit Knowledge, The University of Chicago, Chicago and London 2010.

De Caigny Sofie, Somers Dirk, Van Den Driessche Maarten (eds.), Bovenbouw Architektur: Composite Presence. Biennale Architecture 2021, Flanders Architecture Institute, Antwerp 2021.

De Caigny Sofie (ed.), Maatwerk / Made to Measure: Concept and Craft in Architecture from Flanders and the Netherlands,Flanders Architecture Institute VAi and Deutsches Architektur-Museum – DAM, Antwerp and Frankfurt Am Main 2016.

Dubois Marc, Belgio. Architettura, gli ultimi vent’anni, Electa, Milano 1993.

Goris Klaas, Pirro Ligorio en het Descriptio Silentii, in «Stichting Architectuurmuseum S/AM Bulletin», year 3, n. 3, July-August-September 1986, pp. 8-10.

Grafe Christoph, “Hybrid Practices: A Few Thoughts on Organic Intellectuals in Architecture”, in The Hybrid Practitioner: Building, Teaching, Researching Architecture, edited by Caroline Voet, Eireen Schreurs, Helen Thomas, Leuven University, Leuven 2022,  pp. 29-36.

Kieckens Christian, Roma Nuovum Forum, in «Stichting Architectuurmuseum S/AM Bulletin», year 3, n. 3, July-August-September 1986, pp. 1-5.

Kieckens Christian, IMG_BW, 4_IMG_CH, 5_IMG_AS FOUND, 7_IMG_MILANO, 11_IMG_BERLIN, 16_IMG_ART, 2_IMG_BAROCK, 13_IMG_BXL, 18_IMG_VENEZIA, 3_IMG_SWISS, MASTER STUDIO CK_TEACHING 1982-2016 / Verwoorden #2. Lesopdrachten van Christian Kieckens aan masterstudenten architectuur 1982-2016, CKA-BOOKS, Brussels 2007-2017. Pdf digital publications at: http://www.christiankieckens.be/en/publications/ebooks/ [accessed 9 November 2022].

Polanyi Michael, The Tacit Dimension, The University of Chicago, Chicago 1966.

Tandt Arnaud and Somers Dirk, Dirk Somers: Ik Hou Van De Schizofrenie Van Ons Vak, 2018. Pdf digital publication at:http://www.nav.be/artikel/1308/dirk-somers-ik-hou-van-de-schizofrenie-van-ons-vak/ [accessed 10 November 2022].

Schrijver Lara, Breathing Life into Bricks: The Legacy of the 1970s in,  Autonomous Architecture in Flanders: The Early Works of Marie-Jose Van Hee, Christian Kieckens, Marc Dubois, Paul Robbrecht and Hilde Daem edited by Caroline Voet, Katrien Vandermarliere, Lara Schrijver, Sofie De Caigny, Leuven University, Leuven 2016, pp. 13-18 .

1. See: Marc Dubois, “La posizione sociale dell’architetto”, in Belgio. Architettura, gli ultimi vent’anni, Electa, Milano 1993, pp. 22-23.
2. See: Michael Polanyi, “A Society of Explorers”, in The Tacit Dimension, The University of Chicago, Chicago 1966, p. 53; and Harry Collins, “Relational Tacit Knowledge e Collective Tacit Knowledge and Social Cartesianism”, in Tacit & Explicit Knowledge, The University of Chicago, Chicago and London 2010. On the basis of Polanyi’s epistemological reflection, Collins further elaborates on the aspects related to relational, social and cultural knowledge.
3. Interview with Marc Dubois by the author, Gent, 25 May 2022.
4. Pieter De Bruyne, artist, designer and interior designer (1931-1987). Since the 1950s, he had exchanges and contacts with Milano, where he did an internship at Gio Ponti’s studio, and where he participated in several exhibitions and awards. He was a professor at the Sint-Lucas school in Gent and was a fundamental reference for the education of Kieckens, with whom he established a close friendship. After De Bruyne’s death, Kieckens lived and worked for several years in his house and office in Aalst.
5. See: Caroline Voet et al. (eds.), Autonomous Architecture in Flanders: The Early Works of Marie-Jose Van Hee, Christian Kieckens, Marc Dubois, Paul Robbrecht and Hilde Daem, Leuven University, Leuven 2016. Dubois, Van Hee, Robbrecht, Daem and Kieckens are often identified with the term “generation ’74”, because they all graduated that same year in Gent.
6. Kieckens had prepared digital scans of Dubois’ postcards for a possible publication entitled [PC_MD_CK], which was never realised. In Kieckens’ digital archive at the VAi there are several proofs updated over the years with front-back reproductions of more than 300 postcards. In the final colophon of these proofs, the ‘basic graphic design’ is attributed to Hans Gremmen, Amsterdam, while everything else seems to have been followed personally by Kieckens.
7. Goris’s work on landscape would proceed further in the following years, also and above all through his professional activity with his practice Coussée-Goris, which later became Coussée-Goris-Huyghe. The 2019 exhibition at the VAi entitled Natura Naturans, on which Kieckens also worked, is perhaps the most significant outcome in this respect.
8. For the cover of the issue, Kieckens prepared the collage Roma memoria, a planimetric collage of Roman buildings showing the decisive influence of Colin Rowe’s ideas and of American Urban Design of those years. Additionally, Kieckens also wrote the opening text of the issue. See: Christian Kieckens, Roma Nuovum Forum, and Klaas Goris, Pirro Ligorio en het Descriptio Silentii, in: “S/AM Bulletin”, anno 3, numero 3, July-August-September 1986, pp.1-5 e 8-10.
9. In Kieckens’ archive at VAi there is a substantial collection of travel materials. Along with maps, guidebooks and address lists, tickets and brochures of visited exhibitions are also stored in boxes. In Italy, the cultural dynamism of the Seventies and Eighties is closely linked to the political and economic climate of the time. At this time, new investments in culture were made possible by the end of reconstruction spending and by the particularly favourable economic trend. The crucial public role played by architecture in the early post-war years contributed to securing it a particularly prominent place in this landscape. The numerous exhibitions and events that were organised, in particular the Triennale di Milano and the Biennale di Venezia, played a crucial role in the subsequent development of the discipline and the profession, for which theoretical and cultural positioning became increasingly important. Belgium, and in particular Flanders, experienced a moment of similar dynamism a few years later than Italy. In the Belgian and Flemish context, this cultural re-activation had great significance also on the level of identity, against the background of the historical division of the country into three linguistically but also politically separate regions.
10. In 1985 Kieckens participated, together with Paul Robbrecht, Hilde Daem and Wim Cuyvers, in the 3rd Venice Biennale di Architettura curated by Aldo Rossi and entitled Progetto Venezia. They developed together a design proposal for the site of Rocca di Noale entitled What a Poem Knows. Kieckens’ subsequent project Le ali del leone (The Lion’s Wings) was instead developed for the competition Una porta per Venezia (A Gateway to Venice) organised as part of the 5th Biennale di Architettura curated by Francesco Dal Co in 1991. The competition boards were later exhibited in the same year at the Belgian Pavilion in the Giardini as part of the exhibition Architetti (della Fiandra).
11. The Godecharleprijs is a prize founded in 1871 by Napoléon Godecharle in memory of his father, the sculptor. Won by Victor Horta in 1883, it is awarded every two years to three Belgian artists in the fields of sculpture, painting and architecture. The prize consists of a scholarship valid for two years with which the winners can organise study and research journeys abroad.
12. See: Paolo Portoghesi, Roma barocca. Roma: Carlo Bestetti, 1966 and then Milano: Laterza, 1978. and Francesco Borromini. Milano: Electa, 1967, 1977, 1984.
13. Interestingly, two years before Kieckens, in 1979, Paul Robbrecht was also awarded with the Godecharle Prize and used it for a journey to Italy, to the Veneto region and to Vicenza, where he studied the architecture of Palladio. It was there that he came into contact with the Centro Internazionale Studi Andrea Palladio, of which he attended the courses and became a member. This same research track would soon be followed by Klaas Goris, who won a scholarship to attend the ‘History of Architecture’ congress of the CISA in 1983.
14. See: Kieckens, Christian, IMG_BW, 4_IMG_CH, 5_IMG_AS FOUND, 7_IMG_MILANO, 11_IMG_BERLIN, 16_IMG_ART, 2_IMG_BAROCK, 13_IMG_BXL, 18_IMG_VENEZIA, 3_IMG_SWISS, CKA-BOOKS, Brussels 2007-2014. Pdf digital publications at: http://www.christiankieckens.be/en/publications/ebooks/ [accessed 9 November 2022].
15. Interview with Karen Van de Steene by the author, Antwerpen, 5 October 2022. Karen Van De Steene worked with Kieckens from 1997 to 2007 and remembers the key role of the slide archive from the time when Kieckens was based in Aalst in Pieter De Bruyne’s house and office.
16. See: Marc Dubois, “Il panorama architettonico delle Fiandre”, in Belgio. Architettura, gli ultimi vent’anni, Electa, Milano 1993, pp. 43-50.
17. Interview with Marc Dubois by the author, Gent, 25 May 2022.
18. In addition to the teaching and lecturing at the ADSL seminars organised by Kieckens in Antwerp, Roberto Cremascoli was also involved with the monographic exhibition Het huis, De mentor, Het archief organised at the VAi in 2016.
19. First Vlaams Bowmeester, Flemish Government Architect, was bOb Van Reeth, who remained in office from 1999 to 2005. Van Reeth, with whom Kieckens closely collaborated for many years at the University of Antwerp, was very influential in the initial definition of the Open Oproep system.
20. All the documentation on Kieckens’ courses and teaching activities is collected in: Christian Kieckens, MASTER STUDIO CK_TEACHING 1982-2016 / Verwoorden #2. Lesopdrachten van Christian Kieckens aan masterstudenten architectuur 1982-2016, CKA-BOOKS, Brussels 2017. Pdf digital publication at: http://www.christiankieckens.be/en/publications/ebooks/ [accessed 9 November 2022].
21. With regard to the relationship between Belgium and England, the case of William Mann is particularly significant. Before founding his firm Witherford Watson Mann in London, Mann worked for many years in Belgium. He worked briefly with the Kieckens office in the early 1990s, following the Oudenburg project together with Kristoffel Boghaert and Karen Van de Steene, and then worked for another 10 years with Robbrecht en Daem. Together with Sergison Bates, Tony Fretton, and Maccrenor Lavington, he is among the British architects who have participated in the Open Oproep on several occasions, succeeding in realising a number of important realisations in Flanders. In this regard, see in particular: Lucas Antonissen, Continuity and the Everyday in Architecture: Four British Practices Working in Flanders, in “arq: Architectural Research Quarterly”, volume 25, no. 4, December 2021, pp. 304-323.
22. The ADSL seminars, still active nowadays, are organised each year on a specific theme on which all invited lecturers are asked to reflect together with the students during a week-long workshop. The first themes proposed by Kieckens were: urban scenography, sampling, serendipity, happiness, congruence, transformer, dissolution, absence, on certainty, consistency. Among the many international architects and professors invited by Kieckens over the years were:: Rubens Azevedo and Julian Löffler, Roberto Cremascoli, Job Floris, Christoph Grafe, Aleksanra Jaesche and Andrea di Stefano, Frazer Macdonald Hay, Gennaro Postiglione, Marcel Meili, Florian Beigel, William Mann, Akos Moravansky, Jos Bosman, Alexander Baertscher, Lorenzo Bini, Josep Bohigas – Daniel Cid, Graeme Brooker, Helena Casanova – Jesus Hernandez, Christian Fröhlich, Spyridon Kaprinis, Kei Portilla Kawamura, Sally Stone, Wilfried Kühn – Simona Malvezzi, Jürg Conzett, Oliver Thill, Ellis Woodman, David Kohn,Mark Pimlott, Anne Holtrop, Cino Zucchi, Andrea Branzi, Philippe Rahm, Irina Davidovici, Florian Fischer – Reem Almannai, Tony Fretton, Christian Rapp, Brandlhuber+, Véronique Patteeuw. These themes and names effectively describe the substance and extent of the disciplinary culture orchestrated and transmitted by Kieckens through the instruments of the journey and then of the seminar. For complete information on the seminars and for Kieckens’ introductory speeches, see: Christian Kieckens, MASTER STUDY CK_TEACHING 1982-2016 / Verwoorden #2. Lesopdrachten van Christian Kieckens aan masterstudenten architectuur 1982-2016, CKA-BOOKS, Brussels 2017. Pdf digital publication at: http://www.christiankieckens.be/en/publications/ebooks/ [accessed 9 November 2022].
23. See: Arnaud Tandt and Dirk Somers, Dirk Somers: Ik Hou Van De Schizofrenie Van Ons Vak, 2018. Digital publication at:http://www.nav.be/artikel/1308/dirk-somers-ik-hou-van-de-schizofrenie-van-ons-vak/ [accessed 10 November 2022].
24. Besides the use of the term made by Stefano Boeri, to whom Dirk Somers refers in the interview with Arnaud Tandt, the Blue Banana, also known as the European megalopolis or as the Liverpool-Milan axis, is a term based on the economic and demographic studies carried out by the French geographer Roger Brunet and his research group RECLUS in the late Eighties. The term first appeared in an article by Josette Alia on the Nouvel Observateur and was in turn related to an earlier expression formulated by French politician Jacques Chérèque.
25. See: “Rereading History: Conversation between Tom Avermaete, Sofie De Caigny, Christoph Grafe and Daniel Rosbottom”, and “Prelude: Conversation between Sofie De Caigny, Jantje Engels, Christoph Grafe and Marius Grootveld”, in Maatwerk / Made to Measure: Concept and Craft in Architecture from Flanders and the Netherlands, edited by Sofie De Caigny, Flanders Architecture Institute VAi and Deutsches Architektur-Museum – DAM, Antwerpen and Frankfurt Am Main 2016, pp. 207-223, 224-230, but also: Irina Davidovici, “Communities of Practice: Reflections on a Latter-Day Flemish Tendens”, in Bovenbouw Architektur: Composite Presence. Biennale Architecture 2021, edited by Sofie De Caigny, Dirk Somers, Maarten Van Den Driessche, Flanders Architecture Institute, Antwerpen 2021, p. 28; Christoph Grafe, “Hybrid Practices: A Few Thoughts on Organic Intellectuals in Architecture”, in The Hybrid Practitioner: Building, Teaching, Researching Architecture, edited by Caroline Voet, Eireen Schreurs, Helen Thomas, Leuven University, Leuven 2022, pp. 29-36; Lara Schrijver, “Breathing Life into Bricks: The Legacy of the 1970s”, in Autonomous Architecture in Flanders: The Early Works of Marie-Jose Van Hee, Christian Kieckens, Marc Dubois, Paul Robbrecht and Hilde Daem, edited by Caroline Voet, Katrien Vandermarliere, Lara Schrijver, Sofie De Caigny, Leuven University, Leuven 2016, pp. 13-18.