Welcome to London Grip, a forum for reviews of books, shows & events – plus quarterly postings of new poetry. Our most recent posts are listed below. Older posts can be explored via the search box and topic list. For more information & guidelines on submitting reviews or poems please visit our Home page.
Ten years ago, UNESCO added the Maison Guiette in Antwerp to its World Heritage List.
The house, 100 years old this year, was Le Corbusier’s first international commission and is the only surviving building designed by him in Belgium.
The commission came from Antwerp painter René Guiette who had discovered the principles of purisim and the emerging language of modernism in “L’Esprit Nouveau,” the French avant-garde journal founded in 1920 by Le Corbusier, Amédée Ozenfant and Paul Dermée.
Kicking off a project that would be developed almost entirely by correspondence, Guiette wrote to Le Corbusier telling him: “I should like a house by you”. The extensive specifications included a painter’s studio at the top, insulated from the sounds of the house, and corridors that must have “very beautiful light”.
Getting a bold vision past the Antwerp authorities was easier said than done. What is so inspiring about this book is that it documents how the artists involved in the creation of Maison Guiette brooked no opposition. Later artists who lived in it and demonstrators who ensured its survival when a motorway plan threatened its demolition also offer role models of how to follow our dreams.
“The city, which owns the land, is proving difficult to convince of the need to build in a manner so contrary to its habits,” Guiette wrote to Le Corbusier in 1925.
Some compromise had to be involved, but both client and architect had the vision, determination and means to see their project through. They achieved that around a year after Guiette’s first letter.
“The question of price is decisive, and it is certain that, should you maintain your programme, the proposed budget would have to be revised,” wrote Ch. E. Jeanneret. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret was originally the name of the architect who became famous under the pseudonym Le Corbusier.
The budget is not disclosed. From what we read, Guiette was far more concerned about getting the house built than its cost.
“Needless to say, it is absolutely essential that we make rapid progress. I am counting on you, dear Sir, to carry out what I am asking of you with all possible speed,” he dared to write to the mighty Le Corbusier.
According to Guiette’s granddaughter Françoise Cousin the result was ideally suited to its occupants.
“His house was his universe,” she wrote of her grandfather in one of the many documents she has entrusted to the Fondation Le Corbusier,
She also marvels at the “striking contrast” between the modernism of the Maison Guiette and the typical Antwerp townhouse where he grew up with its “richly decorated, rather dark nineteenth century interior”. But to thrive artistically, “he needed to be in a pared-back space” – a blank canvas, or almost.
For decades, the house was a happy home, discounting the tragedy of “Tito”, the Guiettes’ only son who was killed when a bomb hit the Rex cinema in Antwerp during World War Two. The couple also had two daughters.
Maison Guiette was vacant from 1976 until 1983, which is when photography student Patrick Robyn was drawn to the house.
“It didn’t occur to me that it could be a house by Le Corbusier, although I knew who he was. But I felt very much attracted by it,” he said.
He rang the doorbell repeatedly. Eventually it was answered by one of the workmen involved in building a tunnel that runs under the road in front of the house. He gave him the phone number of Marianne Guiette, Guiette’s daughter.
One thing led to another, Patrick Robyn and his then girlfriend Ann Demeulemeester visited the house and fell in love with what he said was “a very beautiful ruin”. They could not afford to buy it, let alone restore it, but their bravery was repeatedly met by luck and in 1987, the 100th anniversary of Le Corbusier’s birth, they were able to qualify for generous funding from the Belgian government.
“It was the house that was correct for us,” Demeulemeester said. “We were aligned.”
The house was as instrumental for them as it was for Guiette. Demeulemeester achieved fame in the late 1980s as one of the “Antwerp Six”, a group of designers renowned for their non-traditional clothes.
Both she and Robyn, who became her husband and used his photography to support her career, have spoken of the minimalist influence of the house in helping to shape their work.
As the book on Maison Guiette observes, it used to be the younger generation that fled the nest.
In the case of the Robyn-Demeulemeester family, it is the parents who have moved out, leaving their only son Victor Robyn, a graphic designer and photographer, to carry on the tradition of living in an artwork and drawing inspiration from it.
Maison Guiette – Le Corbusier
Published by Hannibal Books
Ten years ago, UNESCO added the Maison Guiette in Antwerp to its World Heritage List.
The house, 100 years old this year, was Le Corbusier’s first international commission and is the only surviving building designed by him in Belgium.
The commission came from Antwerp painter René Guiette who had discovered the principles of purisim and the emerging language of modernism in “L’Esprit Nouveau,” the French avant-garde journal founded in 1920 by Le Corbusier, Amédée Ozenfant and Paul Dermée.
Kicking off a project that would be developed almost entirely by correspondence, Guiette wrote to Le Corbusier telling him: “I should like a house by you”. The extensive specifications included a painter’s studio at the top, insulated from the sounds of the house, and corridors that must have “very beautiful light”.
Getting a bold vision past the Antwerp authorities was easier said than done. What is so inspiring about this book is that it documents how the artists involved in the creation of Maison Guiette brooked no opposition. Later artists who lived in it and demonstrators who ensured its survival when a motorway plan threatened its demolition also offer role models of how to follow our dreams.
“The city, which owns the land, is proving difficult to convince of the need to build in a manner so contrary to its habits,” Guiette wrote to Le Corbusier in 1925.
Some compromise had to be involved, but both client and architect had the vision, determination and means to see their project through. They achieved that around a year after Guiette’s first letter.
“The question of price is decisive, and it is certain that, should you maintain your programme, the proposed budget would have to be revised,” wrote Ch. E. Jeanneret. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret was originally the name of the architect who became famous under the pseudonym Le Corbusier.
The budget is not disclosed. From what we read, Guiette was far more concerned about getting the house built than its cost.
“Needless to say, it is absolutely essential that we make rapid progress. I am counting on you, dear Sir, to carry out what I am asking of you with all possible speed,” he dared to write to the mighty Le Corbusier.
According to Guiette’s granddaughter Françoise Cousin the result was ideally suited to its occupants.
“His house was his universe,” she wrote of her grandfather in one of the many documents she has entrusted to the Fondation Le Corbusier,
She also marvels at the “striking contrast” between the modernism of the Maison Guiette and the typical Antwerp townhouse where he grew up with its “richly decorated, rather dark nineteenth century interior”. But to thrive artistically, “he needed to be in a pared-back space” – a blank canvas, or almost.
For decades, the house was a happy home, discounting the tragedy of “Tito”, the Guiettes’ only son who was killed when a bomb hit the Rex cinema in Antwerp during World War Two. The couple also had two daughters.
Maison Guiette was vacant from 1976 until 1983, which is when photography student Patrick Robyn was drawn to the house.
“It didn’t occur to me that it could be a house by Le Corbusier, although I knew who he was. But I felt very much attracted by it,” he said.
He rang the doorbell repeatedly. Eventually it was answered by one of the workmen involved in building a tunnel that runs under the road in front of the house. He gave him the phone number of Marianne Guiette, Guiette’s daughter.
One thing led to another, Patrick Robyn and his then girlfriend Ann Demeulemeester visited the house and fell in love with what he said was “a very beautiful ruin”. They could not afford to buy it, let alone restore it, but their bravery was repeatedly met by luck and in 1987, the 100th anniversary of Le Corbusier’s birth, they were able to qualify for generous funding from the Belgian government.
“It was the house that was correct for us,” Demeulemeester said. “We were aligned.”
The house was as instrumental for them as it was for Guiette. Demeulemeester achieved fame in the late 1980s as one of the “Antwerp Six”, a group of designers renowned for their non-traditional clothes.
Both she and Robyn, who became her husband and used his photography to support her career, have spoken of the minimalist influence of the house in helping to shape their work.
As the book on Maison Guiette observes, it used to be the younger generation that fled the nest.
In the case of the Robyn-Demeulemeester family, it is the parents who have moved out, leaving their only son Victor Robyn, a graphic designer and photographer, to carry on the tradition of living in an artwork and drawing inspiration from it.
Barbara Lewis © 2026.
By Barbara Lewis • added recently on London Grip, architecture, books • Tags: architecture, Barbara Lewis, books