World Architecture Day – a Meaningful Day for our Heritage

Every year, on the first Monday of October, World Architecture Day is celebrated worldwide. The day was established in 1985 by the International Union of Architects (UIA) with the aim of highlighting the societal role of architecture.
After all, architecture is more than just designing buildings – it is a discipline that directly influences our well-being, our living environment, and our future.

This day is dedicated to a central theme that encourages reflection on today’s challenges.
In 2025, the focus is on “Design for Strength” – a call to build a world that is socially, ecologically, and culturally resilient.
Lectures, exhibitions, and open days are organized worldwide today to demonstrate how architecture contributes to this future vision.

Architectural Conservation Trust
For us, this day is especially meaningful: it not only marks the official starting point of the Architectural Conservation Trust (ACT), but also the inclusion of two exceptional residences into the international network Iconic Houses – the Jozef Schellekens House (1934) and the Carli Vanhout House (1964).

Both residences are indispensable links in the evolution of modernism in the Kempen region.
The Jozef Schellekens House testifies to the innovative spirit of the interwar period – a period in which the Provincial architect from Turnhout resolutely broke with traditional thinking and placed light, functionality, and simplicity at the forefront.
The Carli Vanhout House builds upon this in a different era: the early sixties, when expressive brutalist forms and a strong relationship between inside and outside set the tone for a new generation of designers.
Together, these residences tell a story of continuity, innovation, and familial craftsmanship – a unique dialogue between family members, between tradition and experiment, between heritage and future.

Visits, Digitization, and Updates

With the Architectural Conservation Trust, we aim not only to preserve this architecture but also to actively engage with it and share it with the public.
We do this by opening the residences for guided tours and architectural tours, which can be booked individually or in groups via our websites.
Visitors thus have the opportunity to experience the architects’ unique living and working environment up close and to better understand their vision of modernist and brutalist construction.

Additionally, the houses can be rented as inspiring locations for various activities – from meetings and cultural gatherings to film shoots, photo sessions, or intimate events – always with respect for their architectural value and history.

Through our online platforms, interested parties can not only make bookings but also discover more about the underlying stories, the archive, and the operations of ACT.
In this way, these residences remain what they always were: living places of encounter, inspiration, and creation, where heritage, architecture, and contemporary experience merge.

https://jozefschellekens.be/
https://vanhoutschellekens.be/
https://actrust.be/

These digital platforms do not form a closed entity but a living archive: a place that will be continuously supplemented and maintained.
Meanwhile, we continue to digitize plans, photos, and documents, so that this valuable heritage not only remains visible but can also be continuously researched, shared, and passed on.
Read more: https://actrust.be/digitalisering-archieven-vanhout-schellekens/

The relevance of modernism – with its focus on sustainability, rational use of space, and social engagement – is once again palpable today.
In a time when we are globally reflecting on how we live, build, and coexist, the heritage of the Kempen region offers surprisingly relevant answers.
The houses of Schellekens and Vanhout demonstrate that good architecture does not age: it continues to speak, challenge, and inspire.
Read more: https://actrust.be/turnhouts-modernisme-op-weg-naar-europese-erkenning/

Restoration of the Jozef Schellekens House
Parallel to these heritage activities, a new restoration and modernization process for the Jozef Schellekens House is currently underway.
With this project, we aim not only to restore the building to its original architectural value but also to adapt it to contemporary sustainability standards.
Thus, heritage becomes not a static entity but an active instrument for future-oriented building – fully in line with the theme of World Architecture Day: Architecture for a Resilient Future.
The restoration is part of a broader vision in which preservation, reuse, and innovation reinforce each other.

World Architecture Day calls for reflection on the role of architecture in a changing world.

It is a day to realize how buildings preserve stories, how they color our living environment, and how they bridge the gap between past and future.
For us, it is primarily a day of gratitude – for what has been preserved, and for what we may rediscover together.

Today, we look back with pride, but especially forward:
Towards a future where architecture is not only remembered but continues to live – in stone, in image, and in shared stories.