Journal of Architectural Conservation
Volume 12, Issue 2, July 2007
The Billiet House, Bruges
Reconstruction of a Colour Scheme
Ann Verdonck
Paper Summary
In 1927, Huib Hoste, one of Belgium’s leading architects from the modern era, designed a house with a diamond-cutting facility for the successful entrepreneur Jules Billiet.
The house was added to the protected monuments’ list in 1995. In the beginning of 2002, I came across a blueprint in a private collection in Bruges and identified it as one of Hoste’s original design drawings for this house. It included an impressive ensemble of abstract paintings that showed a total design for the walls and ceiling of the living room. Colour research proved that the paintings in the Billiet house were executed early on in the original design and still remain present, although they are covered by three layers of more recent paint coatings. The colour research conducted in the Billiet house in 2002 allowed a full-scale reconstruction of Hoste’s design to be made. Incorporating original furniture elements, this reconstruction gives an impression of the original splendour of this abstract masterpiece. Analysis of colour stratification through microscopy confirmed the historical research and helped to reconstruct a coherent colour scheme and decor. Developing the restoration philosophy and preservation programme for the future of this rare modern interior and its furniture is an important challenge.
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Figures 7 and 8 computer visualization of the results of the colour research done in the living room.
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Ann Verdonck BA, BA (Arch), MA, PhD
Professor Ann Verdonck has been a teacher at the Hogeschool voor Wetenschap en Kunst from 1989 till 1995. She worked for four years as an assistant professor at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Since 2002, she has been a member of the board of the Commission of Monuments and Architecture of Ghent (COMA). At present, she is also professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Faculty of Engineering, department of Architectural Engineering, and a partner of the studio for research on monuments and artefacts, Examino cvba (Lovendegem, Belgium).
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