Belgian Pavilion

Interiors. Notes and Figures

The Belgians, as always, kept it clean and simple. It was a welcome relief from the monotony of information on display elsewhere. The exhibition comprised a series of minimalist architectural interpretations based on a photographic study of hundreds of domestic interiors throughout Belgium.

The exhibition was based on a photographic study of 260 Belgian homes. Photo Credit: Paul Raftery

Each intervention was paired with a page from the accompanying catalogue, which records and analyses the diverse range of humble elements and subtle modifications we make in our homes.

For example, a series of white bookshelves in the corner of the gallery illustrated a home where a disused chimney had been used to store objects, while a solemn group of fridges suggested a home where the cupboards had been clustered to match the height of the appliances. Elsewhere a tiled floor demarcated the space of the gallery and a group of chairs, connected by the line of a dado rail, were perched alongside a wall of a side room. The curators came up with a 'language of inhabiting' to describe common forms and configurations found repeatedly in these little-documented homes.

The exhibition was based on a photographic study of 260 Belgian homes. Photo Credit: Paul Raftery

'Behind the permanence of buildings' facades, all sorts of transformations and modifications are carried out by successive owners and occupants,' say curators Sebastien Martinez Barat, Bernard Dubois, Sarah Levy and Judith Wielander. 'Counter to our notion of modernity as an all-consuming phenomenon, a study of our everyday interiors reveals a vernacular architecture in which it seems that modernity itself is being consumed.'