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Whether transparent, sandblasted, screen-printed or re ecting, glass is omnipresent in the AGC Glass Building. Frames are made of white-painted steel or bead-blasted stainless steel, in natural anodized aluminium or stained oak and reti ed bamboo.
The carpeting, oor and wall tiling, the painting of the walls and ceilings, the furniture (with the exception of furniture made of wood) are without colour: everything is in shades of pure grey, from white to black, selected from the NCS colour classi cation system, nos. 0500 – 95001.
They all act as ‘mirrors of colours’, providing the ‘necessary and suf cient’ background for the colour not just of the works of art, but also of the building’s occupants and what they are wearing.
The refurbishment of Groenhoven Castle in Malderen (1996-1999, 01/352) was the rst time we were able to obtain pure grey paint without any other colour mixed in from a paint manufacturer (Sigma Coatings).
This led hendrik Seghers, the castle’s owner and the person actu- ally ordering the paint, to exclaim ‘Maar het zijn kleur spiegels’ (But these are colour mirrors!) on seeing the colour of his beautiful paintings re ected in the DIN A5 samples of these shades of grey. The castle has since become a gigantic ‘mirror of colours’, re ect- ing the works of art and the lifestyle of its inhabitants, from the dark grey facade which changes its colour with the time of day, to the lighter greys of the inside walls, ceilings and oors (other than the oak oors). Since then, only these greys have been used in my projects, with the express purpose of highlighting works of art.
One great example of this is the houten re station in the Neth- erlands (1997-2000, 01-373, Figure 1), where 2,200 children aged between 5 and 7 each painted their vision of a re ghter on just as many A3 panels pre-painted in warm shades ranging from ultramarine to orange.These have now been xed to the end wall of the garage, forming an enormous mural 25 m long and 12.5 m high.
A later project sawYves Zurstrassen expressing his passion
for colours, painting the tympana of a set of of ce buildings in Nivelles (1999-2001, 01/379, Figure 2). In doing so, he was inspired
1 - NCS (Natural Colour System) is a colour classi cation system invented in 1979 by the Scandinavian Colour Institute aB, Stockholm. It is to archi- tects what the Pantone matching System, invented in 1963 in Carlstadt, New Jersey, uSa, is to graphic designers and printers.
2 - 01-569 Fire ghting headquarters – Charleroi (2010), 01-573 the House
of european History – Brussels (2010), 01-578 the new Jean monnet 2 administrative centre for the european Commission – Luxembourg (2010), 01-574-1a Lujiazhi Cultural Creativity Garden Zhoushan – P1: Site entrance – Zhoushan (2010- on progress), 01-581 Congress Centre – mons (2011), 01-585 Provinciehuis Oost-Vlaanderen –on progress), 01-494 New headquarters
of the Council of the european union – Brussels (2011-2015, on progress),
by Le village planétaire, a musical composition by henri Pousseur, written specially for the project.
The meeting with Georges Meurant on 21 May 2010 gave a new dimension to this method of integrating colour into an architec- tural space. Our rapport was immediate and the mutual under- standing so obvious that I have repeatedly asked him to work with me2.
It is interesting to look at the reason why the proposals of Georges Meurant are being taken up by architects.
The interior space of any building is mainly de ned by the sur- faces limiting it, i.e., the oors, walls and ceilings.These surfaces either have the texture and colour of the materials they are made of (when these are left visible), or have the colour of a paint on a smooth, plastered surface.
The texture of the visible material – such as wood parquet or a brick wall, even when painted – gives such a two-dimensional space a certain ‘relief’, appropriate for re ecting light in different ways, thereby creating a vibrating effect.This mix of colours ena- bles the eye to cope with a stain or spot on the surface.The motifs inherent in such materials, as is the case with marble plates3, act as an incentive to dream.
By contrast, a smooth surface painted the same colour does not vibrate at all in the light, can get dirty and is uninspiring.This is where murals come into their own, emerging from the mists of time4.
A mural, designed and painted for a speci c wall, can come in dif- ferent shapes and forms, in contrast to a ‘framed picture’, by de - nition an item of furniture. A mural unfolds its meaning through its intimate relationship with the architecture.
The way Georges Meurant gives contours to a surface through his compositions of coloured rectangles harmonizes superbly with the building’s architectural footprint, as described in greater depth in the following section. It is also described in Meurant’s recent book, Perpetuum mobile5.
01-527 De Groene Linde – Sint-Genesius-Rode (2011-2015, nearing comple- tion), 01-597 CVOk – kortrijk (2012), 01-598 Brutele-VOO Control Centre
– Charleroi airport, (2012), 01-577 aGC Glass Building – Louvain-la-Neuve (2013), 01-593 OReS Charleroi (2013). the work for aGC is the rst to be actually completed.
3 - the Chinese have made an art of this.
4 - Reading e.H. Gombrich’s The Story of Art, the rst edition of which dates from 1950, is a very rewarding experience for anyone interested in this subject.
5 - Georges meurant, Perpetuum mobile (kantoken, 30 may 2013, Brussels, ISBN 978-2-930739-04-5).
PURE GREyS aND COLOUR