Posted in Design Stories
Nicolas Schuybroek: Spaces of Objects
![Mlle Pogany](https://context-gallery.imgix.net/products/Nicolas-Schuybroek-spaces-of-objects-mlle-pogany.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=60&w=980&s=c5c5545efdf6b8123ac6730929794beb 980w, https://context-gallery.imgix.net/products/Nicolas-Schuybroek-spaces-of-objects-mlle-pogany.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=60&w=600&s=4a2321892d83e6a35e43ac3283b334a0 600w)
In early 2016, when objects work approached Belgian Architect Nicolas Schuybroek to present a pair of bowls for their growing collection of architect-designed homewares. The simple request was met by a simple response: two bowls emerging from a point of geometric purity, each described by two perfect circles, extruded in different materials, and set as shells within one another.
Schuybroek described the exquisite pair, named the HH bowls, as complementary feminine and masculine versions of one another. The masculine is architecture in miniature, a mass carved from raw stone, while the feminine bowl is expressed in lighter materials: perforated bronze and lacquer. This simple response reveals very specific thinking about pairing, relationships, interiority, and exteriority.
While the bowls themselves are highly considered pieces, even more insightful was what Schuybroek orchestrated when the director of when objects work, Beatrice de Lafontaine, asked him to design the showroom at the 2016 Milan Furniture Fair. The room would display a range of objects, including his bowls. For a relatively young architect with his primary experience in residential interiors, it was a unique proposition. Schuybroek turned his mind to the project in a masterly manner. Set in an innocuous existing building on Milan’s Via Pontaccio, the showroom space nestled into the rich material history of the city. A temporary pocket of serenity, its ephemeral nature was tactfully countered by the solidity of the proposition.
![Hh Bowl German Limestone Context](https://context-gallery.imgix.net/products/h/hh-bowl-german-limestone/HH-Bowl-German-Limestone-CONTEXT.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=60&w=1000&s=ee52b961783acb7f018cb51e98c088ae 1000w, https://context-gallery.imgix.net/products/h/hh-bowl-german-limestone/HH-Bowl-German-Limestone-CONTEXT.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=60&w=600&s=93e84a628ded6759900b2b8b0561ae3d 600w)
Schuybroek collaborated with Belgian stone manufacturer Hullebusch to conceive a means of redefining the tight space. In the centre of the square white room, five when objects works pieces were each placed atop a solid sculptural block of raw, unfinished grey travertine.
![Nicolas-Schuybroek](https://context-gallery.imgix.net/images/Nicolas-Schuybroek.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=60&w=1500&s=a69e9f813075a7db7b82ebcdedc85e62 1500w, https://context-gallery.imgix.net/images/Nicolas-Schuybroek.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=60&w=1000&s=722fe7f8f88cbdbfce234b0dfef034cb 1000w, https://context-gallery.imgix.net/images/Nicolas-Schuybroek.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=60&w=600&s=2af0e19c399c977ea4944762022f134a 600w)
Together with the travertine of the masculine HH bowl, this design move recalls the family of plinth elements revered Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi created to support his carved sculptures. Raising the objects above the ground to the level of our hands, the blocks read as volcanic growths rather than domestic assemblage: raised geothermal terraces reminiscent of the stalagmites from which the travertine may have originally been formed. Addressing the scale of the human body directly, the blocks became spatial operations, not simple display devices. Visitors might navigate around or through these volcanic stone islands, coming to each object from multiple different perspectives. We begin to see things re-envisioned as something else: bowls as plinths; plinths as sculpture; architecture defined not by walls, but by objects and elements.
![Constantin Brancusi](https://context-gallery.imgix.net/products/Nicolas-Schuybroek-spaces-of-objects-Constantin-Brancusi.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=60&w=1200&s=6a46783f2272c18def3813d3790aa29e 1200w, https://context-gallery.imgix.net/products/Nicolas-Schuybroek-spaces-of-objects-Constantin-Brancusi.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=60&w=1000&s=19afd5190e35443bd33e3b82f53121e6 1000w, https://context-gallery.imgix.net/products/Nicolas-Schuybroek-spaces-of-objects-Constantin-Brancusi.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=60&w=600&s=bd469ffd2dfbfaa57d09cedcc994478a 600w)
Recalling the black and white grids of Carl Andre, Schuybroek finished each plinth with an inset, unfinished steel plate, tapering the stone to form a negative which allows the plates to hover within the stone, fluid-like. Set against the matte white gallery walls and the richly textured stone, the slight shine of the steel plate was just enough to pick up the light falling into the space from the tall windows that looked out onto the street. Touched by this light, each plate revealed a deep shadow of the object that was set, centrally and singularly, on it.
![Nicolas Schuybroek Spaces of Objects Hullebusch Biennale Interieur 10](https://context-gallery.imgix.net/products/Nicolas-Schuybroek-spaces-of-objects-Hullebusch-Biennale-Interieur-10.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=60&w=2350&s=0b225a839e1c7a956e2e208f6c64c355 2350w, https://context-gallery.imgix.net/products/Nicolas-Schuybroek-spaces-of-objects-Hullebusch-Biennale-Interieur-10.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=60&w=1565&s=af39bcdf68986b07e85fe8370489e693 1565w, https://context-gallery.imgix.net/products/Nicolas-Schuybroek-spaces-of-objects-Hullebusch-Biennale-Interieur-10.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=60&w=1000&s=5f4c77d3346601422929d14844c766e6 1000w, https://context-gallery.imgix.net/products/Nicolas-Schuybroek-spaces-of-objects-Hullebusch-Biennale-Interieur-10.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=60&w=600&s=1480e89a3ae1f8cca493d8f6168cc57d 600w)
Designing this kind of a space might be seen as an inversion of Schuybroek’s usual approach. In his career to date, he has shown particular adeptness at renovation projects, designing inward from what already exists. His mastery of this genre may be a response to the rich material and urban fabrics of the places he works, ancient cities in Belgium and France. Here, buildings are stripped back to structural shells, simplified to reveal a monastic interiority. Schuybroek works with the finesse of a sculptor, aiming not to fill or create space, but to enhance and bring warmth to potentially overlooked or forgotten interiors. With a neutral but rich palette, spaces are re-articulated, and distinct experiences are crafted. Schuybroek would humby credit the apparent effortless purity of his work to his time working under the mentorship of Belgian Architect Vincent van Duysen — but, as with all practices that deal with such a level of craft, his unique eye and hand are evident.
In contrast to these inward looking renovation projects, designing for objects constitutes a kind of designing outward. The momentum is different. But, to think of renovations and objects as requiring separate design methods would be to misunderstand the ways Schuybroek works, to oversimplify the process as a linear movement towards or away from an object or vision. Rather, what Schuybroek carries out is a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk, a designing the whole work, the totality of experience from the structure to the finest of details. To catch the specific momentum of objects, Schuybroek looks to quietly reveal ways in which each object might be understood. His concern with time and space as the key means of engaging with and understanding each object is evident.
![Nicolas-Schuybroek-Spaces-of-Objects-MK-House-1](https://context-gallery.imgix.net/images/Nicolas-Schuybroek-spaces-of-objects-mk-house-1.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=60&w=1600&s=649e39d4d2cdd80b3a9c3cfb7f2da2df 1600w, https://context-gallery.imgix.net/images/Nicolas-Schuybroek-spaces-of-objects-mk-house-1.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=60&w=1565&s=1671b07e1736fe8f4794f6bd318b13ce 1565w, https://context-gallery.imgix.net/images/Nicolas-Schuybroek-spaces-of-objects-mk-house-1.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=60&w=1000&s=6d74d2a793e61fcf44a418f7aa555233 1000w, https://context-gallery.imgix.net/images/Nicolas-Schuybroek-spaces-of-objects-mk-house-1.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=60&w=600&s=957e04edd4fb17b40124f54ef87146c8 600w)
An object isn’t just a physical item, a material sculpture or functional piece. An object can be a space, carrying with it layers of human meaning, enriched through experience. Design, then, comes at once from objects, and somehow also re-creates the very objects from which it comes. It is these experiences, initiated at all scales, which Schuybroek seeks to craft and offer to us as timeless moments.