AXEL VERVOORDT
The BELGIAN DESIGNER is a master at rediscovering the forgotten and giving it a “better place” — a philosophy that’s drawn a devoted A-list clientele including KANYE, DE NIRO AND STING.
The Belgian designer is a master at rediscovering the forgotten and giving it a “better place”
What is greatness? For Eleanor Roosevelt, it was the discussion of ideas rather than people or events that led to greatness of mind. It’s a wonderful sentiment, and a reminder that we can always cultivate our minds by exploring, and remaining open to ideas. I recently spent an hour with Axel Vervoordt at Kanaal, the epicentre of his art and design empire outside of Antwerp, Belgium, and knew with every fibre of my being that I was in the presence of someone truly great. It wasn’t just that as a novice creative, I was finally meeting the grand master of the ‘mix’ — Vervoordt has been bringing together disparate ages and styles since the 1970s — whose now well-thumbed books on interiors, and so much more, I’d been collecting for decades. Nor was it the sublime, almost templeeqsue nature of Kanaal (more on that later), or my visit to the Kasteel van ’s-Gravenwezel, the 12th-century castle that Vervoordt and his wife, May ‘rescued’ in 1984 and have since called home. (Replete with a moat, wildly romantic outbuildings and a park-like garden, not to mention an interior that shifts between Italian Renaissance and Japanese Zen, the castle is one of the most magical homes on the planet.) What was extraordinary about Vervoordt was none of this — and all of this — but the profound depth of feeling with which he does, well, everything. Eleanor would have approved; here was the very definition of an ideas man. “The old world inspires me to create a new world,” Vervoordt tells me as we sit in one of Kanaal’s Artist Studios. “Every day I discover something new: a piece of wood, furniture or a great artist. You make yourself vulnerable, to be receptive, but it’s so important to always look at things with open eyes and an open heart.” His philosophy, put simply, is rediscovering the forgotten and giving it a “better place”, whether a fine piece of Huguenot silver, a weathered antique timber panel or a simple found object such as a stone. And it’s a philosophy that resonates with his clients — Robert De Niro, Sting, Calvin Klein and Kanye West, to name a few. ››
‹‹ Much like the castle, Kanaal is a good example of Vervoordt rediscovering the forgotten. Originally a gin distillery from the 19th century, the rambling canal-side industrial complex has been resuscitated — over the course of more than a decade — by Vervoordt and May, who runs the interior design department, as well as their sons, Boris and Dick, who oversee art and architecture. Kanaal houses the Axel Vervoordt Gallery and a part of the collection of Axel & May Vervoordt Foundation; offices and apartments; and restoration and research facilities for his 100-plus staff (there’s even a French bakery and a Japanese restaurant). The ‘dialogue’ between the architecture and the Foundation’s art collection makes for a thought-provoking environment. Monumental installations by James Turrell and Anish Kapoor are interspersed with works by Lucio Fontana, Jef Verheyen and Antoni Tàpies, not to mention Vervoordt’s extensive collection of German Zero movement artists as well as those of the Gutai from Japan. What really takes it to the next level, however, is the pairing of these works with antiquities from the various cradles of civilisation, such as a tiny Cycladic head, almost 5000 years old, or the seated Lohan, a 13th-century Chinese wooden figure of a monk in meditation that sits on his own within a circular, almost cave-like space. “I think that in every object we have, there is a silence — a sense of peace and harmony that involves you and embraces you,” he says. Eastern philosophies have long informed Vervoordt and he cites his personal concept of Wabi — from the spirit of the values of Zen monks in Japan, who sought contentment in simplicity, purity and restraint — as his greatest inspiration. “It’s the celebration of beauty in humble things.” But giving the old and the forgotten that “better place” is never far from his mind. “I see living with antiques as very modern; they tell us as much about the present and future as they do about the past,” he says. “The 21st century must be a century of recuperation. As we become more conscious of the natural resources we use, we must find creative ways to reuse what has been discarded.”
“I think that in every object we have, there is a silence — a sense of peace and HARMONY that embraces you” axel vervoordt