London launch of Ad Hoc Baroque

For Rotor, Marcel Raymaekers, a radical outsider rejected by the established Belgian postwar design scene, requires renewed attention. For nearly 50 years, this architecture school drop-out salvaged and rejuvenated thousands of tons of antique building components via his reuse emporium Queen of the South, and designed and built hundreds of bold suburban houses out of them. These components were—and still are—a testimony to past material cultures and the staggering amount of buildings demolished in Belgium since the end of the Second World War. Raymaekers didn’t keep an archive, provided his design services for “free”, and most transactions happened under the radar. Nevertheless, the oeuvre he was able to assemble, and the way he did it, reveal an alternative architectural history, and suggest how design, construction, labor, and clients might have to change if architecture genuinely wants to become more circular.

The book will be presented by Stijn Colon (Rotor / KULeuven), with editors James Westcott and Aude-Line Dulière (Architectural Association / Rotor).

Marcel Raymaekers exhibition: Unfolding the Archives #6
September 6, 2023–March 17, 2024
Flanders Architecture Institute, De Singel J. V. Rijswijcklaan 155 2018 Antwerp

Ad Hoc Baroque: Marcel Raymaekers’ Salvage Architecture in Postwar Belgium
By Arne Vande Capelle, Stijn Colon, Lionel Devlieger & James Westcott, Rotor
Publisher: Rotor, 2023

International distributor: Idea Books, the Netherlands / Editors: James Westcott, Arne Vande Capelle / Editorial Committee: Aude-Line Dulière (AA / Rotor), Michael Ghyoot (Rotor), Eva Weyns (VAi) / Photography: Anja Hellebaut, Anthony De Meyere / Graphic design: Casier/Fieuws / Proofreading: Nina Woodson.

Published by: Rotor vzw/asbl. 3 Av. de Bâle/Bazellaan, 1140 Brussels. First published November 2023. Copyright © Rotor vzw/asbl. ISBN: 9789464776652.

Rotor is a non-profit design and research practice investigating the organization of the material environment. They develop critical positions through research and design. Besides projects in architecture and interior design, they also produce exhibitions, books, economic models and policy proposals. In 2016, Rotor launched the spin-off project Rotor DC. This is the place to buy salvaged building components.

Ghent University Department of Architecture and Urban Planning trains young researchers and carries out academic research, focusing on the design component of the architectural discipline, in the fields of architecture, building technology and urban planning. The research group of Lionel Devlieger takes a material-culture approach to architectural history and theory, focusing on the environmental impacts of building materials production. It conducts research on the history of building component reuse, building material ecologies and landscapes of the Anthropocene.