MASTER THESIS 2025-26
KUL / CAMPUS SINT-LUCAS BRUSSELS
A POLICY WHISPERING PRAXIS
ORACLES FOR EUROPE
PETER SWINNEN
LABELLESS
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8 JUNE 2016, UKRAINE / KRYVYI RIHN
PHOTO: NIELS ACKERMANN
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FACT Europe is zeroing in on a neoteric nexus: here, now and fast. HUNCH For a Europe that wants to resonate beyond the resolution of financial crisis and regulatory issues an overt cultural operation is urgent. PREDICAMENT In 1958 Brussels was voted the de facto capital city of the European Union. During the 2000 Nice summit it was decided to strengthen Brussels role as Capital of Europe, yet without a clear strategy on how ‘Europe’ would or should be present in the Brussels urban realm (or elsewhere in Europe for that matter). REALITY-CHECK Europe is in desperate need of a common project, casting off its concurrent ‘inclusive’ choosing not to choose philosophy and defensive stance. BEGINNINGS The political-technocratic impasse aside, Europe cannot but fully engage with its (strong) symbolic capital: its cultural identity. AUDIENCE How can widespread audiences learn – anew – to read the complexity of signs and images, and in doing so understand the political and cultural choices they face? EXHIBIT Can cultural infrastructures and architectures reach beyond a mere exhibiting reflex? Offering competitive positions to the realm of ‘cultural capital’ vis à vis policy making and politics? TECHNIQUE Free association and spatial speculation. UNSOLICITED We will designate and design future cultural infrastructures – throughout Europe – in an unsolicited and proactive manner. OPULENCE A powerful ‘investment plan’ for currently unaddressed for EU budgets. IMPACT Propagating and endorsing critical architectural strategies – as policy whispers – free of pseudo-ideologies and/or manic esthetics.
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When pondering upon the cultural representations of the EU today, one easily gets dispirited – or at least distracted – by the actual outcomes. Let’s have a closer look at 2 examples in Brussels:
The House of the European History is a lavishly funded cultural institution showcasing the full history of Europe in multiple permanent exhibitions. The exhibited ‘experiences’ but confirm known clichés, presented in a clickbait-manner.
But 300 meters from there the European Council is housed in an extension of the former Résidence Palace (1927, arch. Michel Polak). The latter was once conceived as the largest apartment complex in Europe, for the high bourgeoisie. In 2016 Samyn & Partners + Studio Valle Progettazioni + Buro Happold realized the ‘Europe Building’, housing the European Council. The back then press-release stated: “The Europa building is one of the most magnificent examples of contemporary architecture in Brussels. The enormous cube is made up of 3.750 restored oak window frames from every EU country, which signifies both the diversity (‘United in diversity’) and the craftsmanship of every Member State, as well as the desire to promote sustainability. At night, the glass lantern is beautifully lit up by 374 LED tubes.”
THE HOUSE OF EUROPEAN HISTORY, BRUSSELS
PERMANENT EXHIBITION
EUROPEAN COUNCIL “SPACE EGG”, BRUSSELS
SAMYN & PARTNERS
Many other ‘exuberant’ and ‘symbolic’ examples could be put forward, clearly showcasing that Europe has the means to invest in cultural infrastructures but lacks strong strategies beyond any predictability. Even more so, anno 2025, the ‘space’ to curate, present, represent or simply criticize cultural affects has gone ‘down the rabbit hole’. The ‘museum’ or the ‘representational building’ are no longer relevant. Being replaced by an endless range of options and capabilities to express cultural affinities, often in highly personal or carefully curated cohort manners.
PORTRET (2019, BÂLE)
PHOTO: NIELS ACKERMANN
In the final declaration for a New Narrative for Europe, a project launched by José Manuel Barroso (EU president 2004-2014) and endorsed by high level international artists, theoreticians, architects and scientists, the European challenge ahead was phrased as follows: “As the crisis bites on cultural budgets, artists and political leaders must work towards greater integration of culture in future EU policies and budgetary orientations. The EU has reached a stage of its history where its cultural dimension can no longer be ignored”.
Recent statistics indicate that the cultural and creative industries – from theatre to architecture, from art to music and design – represent 4.5% of Europe’s GDP. Nevertheless, the total sum earmarked for culture by the EU is still inadequate, e.g. direct aid to cultural projects only accounts for 0.05%, i.e. around € 0.13 per European citizen per year.
In the 1990’s booklet I would like to make a museum where things overlap, Chris Dercon engages with several key artists, critics, philosophers and historians to discuss options for inventing a ‘new museum’. Strikingly enough, throughout the many in-depth talks, André Malraux’s Musée Imaginaire (1947) reveals itself as being one of the last innovative insights when it comes to curating cultural affects… A similar subcutaneous sclerosison ways of representing/provoking cultures and arts can be assessed in the very comprehensive overviews of e.g. “Biennials and Beyond – Exhibitions That Made Art History”, by Bruce Altshuler, as well as “The Biennial Reader” by Elena Filipovic et al. Strikingly enough, the aspect of architectural space and space production is almost absent in all such tropes and iterations.
Apart from studying the above key materials (and much more), our studio will invest in pairing strong strategical thinking with contextual realities. And thus, venturing into finding cracks in the system. Can we – should we? – re-engage in a firm belief in architecture’s capacities to sustain and productively challenge/provoke cultural affects? And in which European context can/should these subsequent oracles be produced?
THE STUDIO PARTICIPANT
For the Master Thesis Studio, we wish to welcome a truly broad and international mix of students, since we also want to learn from their local possibilities/insights when it comes to building (for) culture(s). An important fundament is thus learning from the world, brought in by the studio’s participants. We are there for interested in students who exhibit great refractive analytical power, who are autonomous, critical, truly passionate, and proactive. Studio participants will be encouraged to think politically and act strategically, so that real-time impact can be generated. We are interested in strong designers, clear thinkers and true team players that understand architecture as a strategic tool, never (ever) as a goal in itself. And since our studio wishes to test architecture’s capacity as an unsolicited and pro-active tool for future policy making, we acknowledge the spatial practitioner – the studio participant – as an effective “policy whisperer”.
The studio offers an intense guiding process – as one would have in any spatial practice – to allow students to excel in their final installment at the Faculty of Architecture. This is also the reason why we choose for a labelless studio, because it’s not about synthesizing what one already knows or feels attracted to, it’s about defining new and open directions for one’s future practice (in or outside of architecture). A bolstering envoi.
The kick-off session is foreseen in week 0 of Semester 01 (mid-Sep. 2025). During week 7 of Semester 01 (early Nov. 2025) we will hold a probing workshop on “l’EUnion Fait La Force”, examining the frictional cultural relationships between Europe and Brussels. The workshop will result in a compact atlas. The effective Master thesis Studio starts Semester 02 (early Feb. 2026) and will run via atelier sessions at different locations.
The atelier is led by arch. Peter Swinnen (CRIT. architects, www.CRIT.cc), assisted by external punctual experts. The following non-exhaustive list indicates some first reading pointers and publications, based on our daily architectural practice, and will be further updated in the coming months.
https://crit.cc/work/the-architect-as-policy-whisperer/
https://crit.cc/work/oh-yes-mr-president/
https://crit.cc/work/i-prefer-not-to/
https://crit.cc/work/le-musee-et-son-double-book/
https://crit.cc/work/rene-heyvaert-book-block/
https://crit.cc/work/a-j-lode-janssens-147-mbar/
https://crit.cc/work/luc-deleu-t-o-p-office-future-plans-1970-2020/
May 24, 2025
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