Author Description

Since 1974, when his very first built house, which he designed as a student, was honored with the most important Belgian architecture award, Jo Crepain has developed an impressive body of work. Most of these structures can be found in Belgium, especially the earlier ones; later assignments have ranged throughout the Netherlands. The large diversity and continuous innovation evident in his architectural oeuvre can be understood as a consequence of an incessant search--and one which has yielded some of the most striking structures in recent Belgian architectural history. For Crepain, building is in the first place a psychological phenomenon, and a house is the last place left on earth where we can hope to recover a piece of paradise lost--not only for an elite few, but for as many people as possible. This hefty monograph considers a lifetime of work, from 1973 to 2003, presenting dozens of individual projects through textual descriptions, photographs and floor plans, as well as extended essays on different periods of Crepain's output.