discrepancies with villa teirlink

site specific

2009

konokke heist, Belgium


This project was conceived for the Bienal Beaufort 03. A Bienal for Sculpture in the public space . The Bienal occupies the entire coast of Belgium. My work was installed in the city of Knokke Heist, at the beach. I visited the first time in summer, and I immediately intrigued by the presence of the beach cabins along the coast. As well as by the discrepancy and under-covering set of apartment blocks and bungalows, a veritable carpet of concrete that largely-but no means entirely obscure a landscape that lay pretty much untouched until the 19th century, before the developers turned the beach basket onto an empty line of sand dunes on which nothing grew. 

The invasion of such constructions, ostensively displayed along the coast, is a product of our times, I thought. The remaining of the modern architecture, which had a remarkable presence in such landscape, does no longer exist. Only a few modernist houses are hidden by the confusion of high-rise apartment blocks that string along the beach. 

One of those projects, which is a very important example of the modern dwelling in the seaside resort was the residence made by the architect Victor Bourgois for Hermann Teirlinck and KarelMaes in Saint-Idesbald in 1928.


My project consists of revealing a memory in this specific landscape. Having a starting point of the beach cabins, which have intrigued me since the very beginning of this investigation, I conceived a temporary project that lasts the same time as those temporary structures, which are "laying" on the beach. The beach cabins "arrive" to the beach one time a year, and "stay" there until the season is finished. The moment of this arrival, I see it as a time-space event, as a momentary landscape in the seaside resort.

I rebuild part of the 1st floor of the villa Terilink made by Victor Bourgeois. This part of the house is rebuilt in life size fragments, and constructed as a beach white cabin, similar to the ones displayed along the sand. A total of 15 fragments are placed in the beach as real beach cabins, and are available for the users of the beach. The cabins are installed as fragments of the house and are displayed according to their logic. I turned the house 90 degrees, facing the street, parallel to the see.

Leonor Antunes