Ghent · cultural · listed
Boekentoren (Tour des Livres)
- Architect
- Henry Van de Velde
- Date
- 1939 (begun 1933)
- Type
- cultural
- Style
- Modernism
- City
- Ghent
- Status
- listed
- Address
- Rozier 9, 9000 Gent
The Ghent University Library and Higher Institute of Art History and Archaeology, known as the Boekentoren, designed from 1933 by Henry Van de Velde, assisted by Jean-Norbert Cloquet and the engineer Gustave Magnel, and built from 1936 (structure completed in 1939). Van de Velde, who preferred a tower for its symbolic value, made it the counterpart of the city's three historic towers (belfry, St Bavo's, St Nicholas'). 64 m tall, the tower has a concrete structure whose exposed-concrete facades were cast using sliding formwork, an innovative technique in Flanders, and is crowned by a belvedere. During the war the occupier used it as an anti-aircraft defence centre. Listed as a monument in 1992, it has been undergoing renovation by Robbrecht & Daem since 2012.
Translated from the French original.
Sources
Featured in routes
Other works by Henry Van de Velde
- Athénée royal Adolphe Sax de Dinant Dinant · 1936
- Hôtel De Bodt (Henry Van de Velde) Brussels · 1930