Villa Empain

Villa Empain is a museum of contemporary art in Brussels, Belgium. Created in 1934 as a blend of art déco and Bauhaus, Villa Empain was a passion, a vision, a plan, a home, an artwork. It is a heartfelt dream that was abandoned. Today, it looks like it did in the 1930s, but it has turned into another entity held by the same fundament.

Concrete marble, brick and steel: little else made by human hands seems as stable, as immutable, as a building. Yet the life of any structure is neither fixed nor timeless. Outliving their original contexts and purposes, buildings are forced to adapt to each succeeding age. To survive, they must become shapeshifters.

Villa Empain’s atmosphere is strange and full of wonders. The camera touches gently upon textures as if to glimpse the moments they witnessed, to read the inner meaning of time. There is a secret to unveil but as with every good secret it evades us, it is elusive, we can never grasp it. The entire film is the attempt to find out about something that we cannot put our fingers on. So we put our fingers on wood, water, marble instead, and feel.

Villa Empain compares the life of Louis Empain and his creation. It bears witness to how a fixed idea, an architect’s dream, has disappeared in favour of a living architecture.
The work is activated.