Register of building biographies
Stories in which buildings themselves speak about their memories, desires and visions of the future.
A project by Bart Decroos and Laura Muyldermans in collaboration with Passa Porta, Archipel, nadine laboratory for contemporary arts, and with the support of the Flemish Community.
category
Price
Discount
Programme
payable at the entrance / reservation necessary
language
Can buildings tell us who they are? And what language do they use to do so? Thanks to The Register of Architectural Biographies, we can find out. At the Brussels Archives, the initiators will present the first seventeen architectural biographies: stories in which buildings themselves speak about their memories, desires, and visions of the future.
Writers Persis Bekkering and Milady Renoir will read from the portraits, archivists Bart Decroos and Laura Muyldermans will discuss the project in more detail, and Els Silvrants-Barclay will talk to client Francis Carpentier and architects Els Van Meerbeek and Joost Raes (Carton123 architects) about the process they went through with some of the buildings.
talking buildings
Some buildings remain silent, but most have a story to tell. They whisper, sigh or grumble, while others shout and roar, their history invariably intertwined with that of their inhabitants. But what if buildings could really speak to us? What would they tell us about their desires, memories and visions of the future?
The Register of Building Biographies collects the voices of buildings, with stories found in the cracks of their bricks, the stains on their floors, the passion in their rooms.
writers
Each portrait begins with the collection of the necessary facts, data and characteristics, and Passa Porta asked four authors, Persis Bekkering, Emerald Liu, Tijl Nuyts, and Milady Renoir, to supplement this with a literary text in which the building itself speaks. The final portrait is returned to the building itself as a certificate, where it becomes part of the buildings everyday reality.
counterbalance
The collection of testimonies that is created in this way contributes to the history of our built environment. The administrative process becomes a political intervention, creating a different kind of dialogue between residents and designers, between architecture and literature, between the everyday and the speculative. The dialogue encompasses memories and histories as well as future interventions and legacies. In this way, the Register acts as a counterweight to the pragmatic and functional bureaucracy in which buildings are often caught up.
about the partners
The Register was established in January 2025 by archivists Bart Decroos and Laura Muyldermans. This first volume of seventeen biographies was created in collaboration with Archipel vzw, Nadine Laboratory for Contemporary Arts and Passa Porta, with the support of the Flemish Community. The original documents were donated to the Brussels Archives, where everything is available for public consultation.
about the authors
Persis Bekkering made her debut with the novel Een heldenleven (Prometheus, 2018), nominated for the ANV Debutant Prize. She writes essays and columns as well as literary and art reviews for NRC Handelsblad and de Nederlandse Boekengids, among others. She is also on the editorial staff of the magazine nY. Her second novel, Exces, about the rave movement as a ritual farewell to the future, was published in 2021.
Emerald Liu (1991) is a Sino-Belgian writer. In her work, she strives to create an open dialogue between different cultures. Emerald's work has been published in magazines such as Deus Ex Machina, nY, and Hard//Hoofd, as well as in De Lage Landen, Capsule Stories, and Where Else: An International Hong Kong Poetry Anthology. In 2022, she was invited to participate in the Paris residency of deBuren. She is poetry editor at Kluger Hans and Poëziekrant, and a member of the feminist creators' collective Hyster-X.
Tijl Nuyts (1993) is a Belgian author and poet. In his work, he highlights social issues in a playful and engaging way. His debut novel Grondwerk (2025) explores climate change, collective action, and attempts to make the world habitable in poetic and sensory language. Grondwerk is on the shortlist for the Boekenbon Literature Prize and was warmly received by the press.
Without too many principles or scruples, Milady Renoir attempts to condense what it means to be in the world and among people, through raw poems and physical performances. As the director of her desires and outbursts, between expansive and sensitive, the poet seeks a way to change and commit herself to the struggle of women, undocumented migrants, and other extraordinary people to love. She publishes on art and society and organizes writing workshops and activist networks.
pictures: persis bekkering © stine sampers, tijl nuyts © temmerman steefaan, milady renoir © c. lessire
Soon at Passa Porta
