Heritage days proposals (lost)
2025
Draft proposal for the Heritage Days 2025 around the Art Deco theme
Organised by Urban Brussels
2023
Draft proposal for the Heritage Days 2023 around the Art Nouveau theme
Organised by Urban Brussels
Art Deco - 2025
This illustration is structured around three distinct layers.
The foreground presents an intimate workspace: table, posters, and a vase; open yet quietly exposed to the outside gaze. The second layer unfolds onto a balcony inspired by Brussels architecture, overlooking the iconic Wielemans-Ceuppens, anchoring the scene in a familiar urban context. The third layer plays with superimposition: a living room reflected in a mirror, extending the space and enhancing its depth.
Through this composition, the illustration explores the layered history of European interiors, intertwining Art Deco elegance with colonial legacies and invisible labor. Decorative objects and patterns evoke an aesthetic of refinement that historically staged exoticism while obscuring the social and political realities beneath it.
A subtle disruption unsettles this ordered interior: a hand cleaning the balcony window. Modest yet striking, this gesture points to forms of invisible labor, often carried out by immigrant workers, that sustain these spaces without receiving recognition.
The illustration invites viewers to question what is made visible and what is erased, and to reflect on how interiors continue to carry traces of marginalized histories.
Art Nouveau - 2023
In the foreground, we see the façade of Maison Marjolaine, the interior of Hôtel Hallet, and an interior–exterior composition of Maison Cyr. Further on, the staircase designed by Ernest Blerot connects directly to the interior of the house. Hôtel van Eetvelde frames the image and adds a strong compositional element through the repetition of its windows. Adjacent to it, another building guides the eye toward Maison Cauchie, interrupting the rhythm of frontal façades.
The interplay between interior and exterior, Art Nouveau elements, and façades reveals, in my view, the richness of this architecture. Their fragmentation and autonomous graphic treatment allow the focus to remain on the “object” itself rather than on the neighbourhood, the architect, or a historical narrative. This approach offers a way of making these buildings more accessible. A technical drawing (axonometry, map, etc.), as I had initially imagined when applying, would not have been beneficial in this context.
These objects, illustrated in an abstract manner and assembled playfully, construct a new visual imaginary. This is also an attempt to address the different themes explored over the two days: interior visits, exterior visits, and more.