Detail of the project ed. 2020

GIJS VAN VAEREN­BERGH – READ­ING BETWEEN THE LINES

Design­er	Gijs Van Vaerenbergh
Loca­tion	Wan­del­weg tussen Sint-Tru­ider­s­teen­weg en Romeinse Kas­sei 0, 3840 Bor­gloon, Belgium
Design Team	Pieter­jan Gijs & Arnout Van Vaerenbergh
Year	2011
Pho­to credits	Fil­ip Dujardin (all pictures)

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

The themes ‘mem­o­ry’ and ‘col­lec­tive mem­o­ry’ form an impor­tant motif in the work of Gijs Van Vaeren­bergh. Their inter­ven­tions appeal to his­tor­i­cal, utopi­an or even impos­si­ble con­di­tions. Such is the case for Read­ing between the Lines, which they real­ized in the open land­scape of the Bel­gian region of Haspen­gauw. The work is based on the typol­o­gy of the local parish church that is sit­u­at­ed in the cen­tre of many church vil­lages in the region and, as such, belongs to the col­lec­tive mem­o­ry. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, these church­es were the spa­tial and social cen­tres of vil­lage life, but that role has now been lost. Read­ing between the Lines inter­prets the arche­type of the church through a col­lec­tion of a hun­dred hor­i­zon­tal cross sec­tions – and thus a hun­dred ground plans – of the church. The lay­ers of steel read like a draw­ing in the land­scape. They are sup­port­ed by a field of columns. The result is an image of a church that takes many dif­fer­ent shapes. From afar, the image is trans­par­ent and fleet­ing and seems to blend into the land­scape. Clos­ing in, the work starts to become more spe­cif­ic, sol­id and impen­e­tra­ble, and its details grad­u­al­ly become read­able. This range of impres­sions is com­pa­ra­ble to how we expe­ri­ence mem­o­ries: from very vague and abstract to spe­cif­ic and precise

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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