Page 17 - ELEMENTS EUROPA (EN)

ELEMENTS EUROPA BACKLIT EUROPE 13

make one pay more attention to a building’s subtlety, which does only head
towards unity in the visible sorts of polymorphic assembly. Europa seems to
be protesting against the illusion of a Union based on a bogus principle of
unanimity or indivisibility. Its architecture is reminiscent of how much unity
cannot theoretically exclude the risk of discord or even dislocation. Its iconic
value comes from the clarity with which it keeps its opposite geometries
together, along with its differentiated materials registers. Its facade wood
patchwork is the envelope and heterogeneous set in its heart of glass.
Beyond the intricacy of its potential meanings, the message produced is
crystal clear: to secure cohesion of its combined forces, architecture wraps
itself in the iridescence of potential conflicts and differences. The exteriority
now requested by Britain’s vote brutally repeats this: the popular vote
reminded all that the only existing union is a voluntary and reversible one. In
architecture, such a political art, there is no constructing virtue before the
fantasies of non-separated mass and stone immobility have been tamed and
rejected.

The Europa’s architecture is one of its composition and its geometry.
Its vertical, curved or straight layers, its interlocked quadrilateral or elliptical
plans: its spatial structure formally and functionally resists simplification and
uniformity. It takes on the ambivalence of judgements its own polymorphism
could be the object of in advance, like the image of the institution it
represents. There lies the whole difficulty of the European political and
cultural space. Europe legally is omnipresent but, apart from the crisis peaks
it undergoes, obstinately absent from political speech and debates. Europe
is rich with its cultures but constantly wavering or thwarted in its public
manifestations. Establishing a type of architecture adapted to the needs of
its enlargement and its political strengthening for this was the first reason
for erecting this new head office. But for such a symbol, the architect had to
make the usually opposite principles of emblematic representation and strict
economy compete against one another: this dialectics inspired Philippe
Samyn and guided the project manager through the labyrinth of options.
The concern to explain and justify such architecture led to present the
public not only with the orientations which ruled over its general conception
and specified the erection phases of its main structures (cf. the first Europa
volume, Lanoo/CIVA, 2013), but also with the details of its construction
elements all the way to its ultimate completion.