The minimalist home of architect Glenn Sestig

Welcome to the third episode of the new wallpaper* video series, the stuff that surrounds. Watch how we are invited to the fascinating and idiosyncratic houses by creative and makers (like our debut Veronica advertising and our second episode with Yasmin Sewell) If you expect a look at your inner life over the objects with which you surround yourself, all of which tell a story.

The authors tend to rely on the confirmation strain on the profiling of successful people, which indicates that their path was predetermined. In Glenn Sestig's case, however, the claim feels appropriate. His love for architecture began as a child when his parents commented on houses that they placed in the car. His father was striving to become an architect, but could not afford the training. Sestig fulfilled this long -term dream.

At the age of 13 he had already designed rooms for his parents and grandparents. Even then, his work showed shimmer of his characteristic style – functional and tactile, and took information from Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright and Carlo Scarpa. “When I go back to see the designs, it is the same way to think and design as today. They look like modernity,” says Sestig.

However, it was not a detailed conclusion that he would pursue architecture. Sestig's other passion was fashion, and for a time he was on a crossroads. But he managed to find a way to integrate fashion into his practice and worked with designers such as RAF Simons, Pieter Mulier and Olivier the The counter. “You can't really separate fashion, architecture, photography, music … you all need each other,” he says.

Sestig's breakthrough provided the design of the now Iikonic soap hair studies in Antwerp, and he founded his practice Glenn Sestig Architects the following year (1999). Today he is known for architecture that is not minimalistic per se, but monumental, symmetrical and clever after working on projects such as the Thirty Lane Modernist Villa, a rural retreat for the Pringier family and the La Réserve Hotel in Knokke.

(Photo credit: wallpaper*)

(Photo credit: wallpaper*)

Sestig's residence, which he designed with his husband Bernard Tournemenne – an artist and creative director of Glenn Sestig Architects – in the 1970s by Ivan van Mossevelde for an art collector. 'Visually, it is very brutal. It is completely concrete and the plan is very minimalistic, ”says Sestig. 'So when I saw [it]It was something very close to me. '

(Photo credit: wallpaper*)

The house first noticed 25 years ago during a walk. He asked the owner if he could have a tour that she rejected, but Sestig remembered the residence. Years later, in 2017, he acquired it. What followed was a restoration that carefully preserved the shell of the building: “I didn't want to change anything about this beautiful, strong architecture,” he says.

Sestig's house is full of sculptures and sculptural forms, from a ceramic from Guy Baref to a structure from Pierre Caille, whose world only gives in the world, and from stone -haired Italian street furniture from an unknown designer. Then there is the “living sculpture”: Sestig's cat Tanit, named after the goddess of Ibiza, where he saved her from.

Elsewhere: Luminaires from the 'Tennessee' collection, which he designed for Ozone, a huge metal candelabra from Aether/Mass, and a chairman for the Ostend Post designed by architect Gaston Eysselinck. Sestig's collection of seats also includes an Oscar Niemeyer 'Marquesa' Bank, a Zaha Hadid 'Moraine' sofa and the 'Cornaro' sofa from the series “Ultrarazionale”, the only sofa collection that Carlo Scarpa has ever designed.

Art is used sparingly. A portrait of Robert Mappethorpe by Patrick Robyn, the husband of the Belgian fashion designer Ann Demeulemester, hangs on the wall. The only remaining piece from the original owner of the house is a mural from Sol Lewitt.

(Photo credit: wallpaper*)

(Photo credit: wallpaper*)

Sestig chooses his objects more on a feeling than is most important to criteria, it is that an object is well manufactured and resolves with him: “It is difficult to explain why I like an object, but it is important for me that it is really well done. You will find many different objects in the house, but in the end you will feel that it is very I. '