Jan Krupicka

XDGA - Xaveer De Geyter Architects

In 1988 Xaveer De Geyter started his own practice that often surprisingly illuminates the hidden paradoxes and conflicts of the (sub) urban life. The work of XDGA is based on a conscious belief in the formal power of architecture to shape and organize the many flows and often incongruous activities that constitute contemporary society. Rather than fixing programmatic content, it creates a clear-cut environment in which different scenario's, stories and outcomes remain possible. It does not shy away from controversy, polemics or boldness, exactly in order to lay bare the potential of a site, a context or a brief. Without fear or inhibition, architecture is presented as the modern and energetic mediator that does not fold back on the safety of the past or the consensus of the present, but that embraces the uncertainties of a both lucid and positive future. In the nineties De Geyter built his first houses in Mariakerke and Brasschaat. Subsequently, XDGA participated in a number of international architectural and urban competitions. Around the turn of the century, five towers with 137 apartments were built in Breda (NL). During the past decade, larger architectural commissions in Belgium followed swiftly, such as the College of Europe in Bruges, the extension of the Sint-Lucas School of Fine Arts in Ghent, the Kitchen Tower and the Place Rogier (both in Brussels), and two buildings for Ghent University (in collaboration with Stéphane Beel Architects). In 2012, the office won two prestigious competitions, one for the design of the Schuman Square in Brussels and one for the construction of the new Antwerp Province Headquarters (B). During recent years, XDGA has been working more and more abroad, by means of participation in many competitions and by large-scale realisations, such as the Entrepot Macdonald in Paris, a housing complex of 410 apartments in Bordeaux and a master plan for the urban area of Paris-Saclay.