Leo Pleysier and Leen Dries, newly married and eager to build, received a plot of land in Rijkevorsel from Leen’s parents. The plot measured 8 ares but had a rather peculiar shape: it was a 50-meter-long wedge that measured 7 meters at the front and 25 meters at the back. The land was generally considered worthless. No one could envision how to build a house there, at least not a normal house with a facade, front door, and garage. However, through Leen’s sister Maria, they made contact with Paul Neefs (Maria and her husband Jan Van Leuven had already asked the Turnhout architect to design their home in Baarle-Hertog). Neefs saw no problem with the shape of the plot. He told them that a house not only didn’t need a classic facade but could do without one entirely, and to illustrate this, he took them to Rob Van Hout’s house. Upon seeing it, they immediately commissioned him. They wanted a home with three children’s rooms and, since both worked in education, a separate study. Their budget was limited, but they desired a house with plenty of light and, regarding the living area, preferred several smaller spaces rather than one large one.
Neefs’s designed a trapezoidal plan that was nearly identical to the plot’s shape and fitted it with 3-meter distances from the side plot boundaries. Meanwhile, the couple had received a promise from Leen’s aunt, who owned the adjacent plot, that they could later acquire this land as well. Therefore, Neefs shifted the house to the plot boundary with future expansion in mind, with the agreement of the owner who also gave permission to install several windows on that side. The architect transformed the plan so that the cross walls would be perpendicular to the plot boundary, and since the first version had turned out somewhat expensive, he made it considerably more compact.
The house turns its living room, kitchen, and three children’s rooms on the upper floor toward the south, that is, toward the garden at the back. At the front, on the north side, it is rather closed off but nevertheless looks out onto the street through a large corner window. The entrance is located in the middle of the side wall and leads directly to the living room through a small hall. The living area is twofold. One enters into the sitting area, a distinctly high space (3.40 m) that provides access on the left via a sliding door to a distinctly low space (2.26 m), the south-facing garden room (the ceiling height used here and in the bedrooms is the one Le Corbusier proposed with his Modulor, the measure of l’homme–le-bras-levé). Neefs paid special attention to the connection between the two different living spaces, to the transition between high and low. Instead of a sudden jump from one to the other, there is a mutual interpenetration. The ceiling of the low space, actually the volume of the master bedroom, penetrates the high space for some distance, so that it narrows at the top, tapering toward the west facade. The sitting area is thus wider at the bottom than at the top, and accordingly received an L-shaped window, wide at the bottom, narrow at the top. At the bottom, it nestles partly under the penetrating volume. But when the sliding door is opened, this part appears to be part of the garden room as well. It forms an ambivalent link between high and low, vertical and horizontal. Another striking detail in the sitting area is the horizontal interior windowabove the bookcase. This window looks out onto the transition from the stairs to the bedroom hallway, and essentially stages the coming and going in that spot. The children, who quickly discovered this, made a habit of performing pantomimes there for their parents and guests.
Before reaching the bedroom level, the stairs also provide access to the study, which is located half a level above the floor level. It is quite narrow but as high as the sitting area, and offers a broad view of the outside world through the large corner window. It is here that Leo Pleysier developed and established himself as a writer. He worked there for well over fifteen years, until the street traffic became too noisy. Meanwhile, Neefs’s was asked to expand the house onto the adjacent land. The couple wanted a double garage, additional living space, and a new study. Neefs’s incorporated the extension, like the original house, into a trapezoidal plan, and connected both with a veranda. On the north side, he subtly coupled the latter to the original L-shaped window of the sitting area. It’s as if the perpendicular window sections had always formed a whole. The new study is sunken half a meter into the ground and looks out onto the garden. It became another high space, with an extra window to draw in the morning sun. The entire complex of house and extension forms a clear ensemble of white volumes that nevertheless fits modestly and unobtrusively among the commonplaces that thrust themselves against each other along the highway.
‘Architecture in the Golden Sixties – The Turnhout School, Lannoo Campus, 2012’.
