Vincent Van Duysen: The Architect At Home

Vincent Van Duysen’s award-winning work - spanning architecture, interiors and product design - leaves a lasting impression, from retail stores for Ferragamo and Loro Piana, to luxury hotels and residences worldwide. Beginning his career under designer Aldo Cibic at Milan’s Ettore Sottsass, followed by a collaboration with Jean De Meulder in his native Belgium, Van Duysen launched a studio in Antwerp in 1989. Here he honed a purist style for expressive, clean-lined architecture giving way to functional, comfortable interiors that focus on the warmth and timelessness of natural woods, stones, and linens. An appreciation of space, texture and light are paramount in his work.

No more so than in his own homes, a constant source of inspiration and experimentation, explored in a new book entitled Vincent Van Duysen: Private. From his base in Belgium, a modern interpretation of a centuries-old former notary office, to the monastic Casa M in Melides, Portugal, where living spaces flow between concrete walls the colour of the rolling dunes that surround them, the residences represent a true vision of Van Duysen’s style, captured by photographer François Halard, who narrates and interviews the designer throughout.

"When you take photos of one of Vincent’s spaces, there’s an element I would almost call zen," pens Halard. "It’s hard to perceive the peaceful energy of these places in a photo. Another thing I love about him is his use of works of art."

"There are no artworks in Melides," he notes, to which Van Duysen responds, "although you could consider the lingam stones or the armchairs by Caldas to be art. But it’s essentially nature that is highlighted here. There are views of trees framed by windows. Groups of cacti that I shaped myself. You could call these living artworks or plant sculptures. Plus, there is the wind and the birdsong that enter through the open windows."