MASS is the definitive monograph on Willy Van Der Meeren, a Belgian architect whose socialist convictions drove five decades of uncompromising work at the intersection of architecture, industry, and social equity.
About This Book
Van Der Meeren (1923–2002) built with a singular logic: minimum material, maximum clarity, and enough elegance to dignify everyday life. His architecture was conceived as prototype, not monument — each project awaiting the mass production that would make it available to all. That industrial ideal was never fully realised, and MASS sits with that contradiction honestly. It celebrates his architectural stance while questioning architecture's capacity to effect change at genuine social scale. His democratic furniture collection for TUBAX, produced between 1943 and 1955, offers the sharpest irony: objects designed for everyone now circulate as collectibles. An essential text for anyone serious about housing, social architecture, and the limits of design idealism.
Key Features
- 212 pages of critical essays and documentary material on Van Der Meeren's architectural and furniture work
- Edited by Peter Swinnen and Anne Judong
- Published by Spector Books, 2002
What You'll Discover
- Van Der Meeren's guiding principle — architecture built logically, with as little material as possible, endowed with the elegance necessary for daily life
- The tension between his vision for line-manufactured affordable housing and the reality that it was never realised at scale
- How his TUBAX furniture collection (1943–1955) embodied his social ideals, and how its subsequent market desirability undermined them
- A critical interrogation of whether architecture can genuinely operate at a democratic, mass-production scale — or whether the discipline's logic works against it
About the Author
[Details available upon request]
Specifications
- Format: Softcover
- Pages: 212
- Dimensions: 12 × 18 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783959059282
- Publisher: Spector Books
- Publication Date: 2002
Perfect For: Architects and researchers working in social housing, design historians with an interest in Belgian modernism, and anyone grappling with the politics of mass production in the built environment.