OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen
OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen
BELGIUM - Kersten Geers and David Van Severen talk about being half modern, half something else, based on a conviction that architecture has worked 'with more or less the same principles for three thousand years.'
Biography
In 2002 David Van Severen (Ghent, b. 1978) and Kersten Geers (Ghent, b. 1975) founded OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen. They both studied at the University of Ghent and at the Esquela Tecnica Superior de Arquitectura in Madrid. Van Severen worked for Stéphane Beel, Xaveer De Geyter and Atelier Maarten Van Severen. Geers worked for Maxwan and Neutelings Riedijk. He is currently professor at the University of Ghent, and visiting professor at the School of Architecture in Mendrisio.
Profile
Kersten Geers: [Teaching in Mendrisio is] something we really enjoy doing. We fly to Milan, get picked up by a taxi, drive for an hour and then arrive in a place where there’s nothing but a school, the students, and a number of interesting architects like Emmanuel Christ and Christoph Gantenbein, Jonathan Sergison and Manuel Aires Mateus. As there's very little else around, you really have time for one another. It’s an interesting scene with a good sense of collegiality. People sometimes have different views on what exactly architecture might be, but there's plenty of respect for one another.
Hans Ibelings: I always get the impression that it's a somewhat conservative place.
KG: We're from a different generation than most of the others there, but in Mendrisio there's a fairly traditional idea about architecture. In difficult times like ours it's not such a bad thing that there are people who are concerned with what building is in this way.
David Van Severen: Without wanting to reinvent the wheel. Just shifting an accent slightly can make architecture radical and sharp.
KG: We take it personally to a certain extent if you talk about the mild conservatism of Mendrisio. In this context I would place us within a tradition of Belgian art. To me, good Belgian art is not earth-shattering, not radical in the tools it deploys. It is actually quite precise and so in the long run very radical.
Architecture, Theory
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