Built in 1938 as a grand residential building with mansard rooms, maids' quarters and a concierge, Résidence Albert was designed at a time when Antwerp still built apartments with intention and ceremony.

Many apartments in the building had been modernised over the decades. But a handful had been left untouched, or had kept their authentic elements intact even after interventions. This was one of them, with its original layout, its original mouldings and its authentic soul still quietly present beneath everything that had come after. We didn't want to restore but reinterpret. Bringing the past back without falling into nostalgia.

We honored what was there while translating it into the present. The sealed-off kitchen, once the maid's domain, was opened to the living areas, giving the apartment a contemporary flow. Doorways became soft arches: Art Deco in origin but contemporary in spirit. And where the building's decorative grandeur needed enhancing, we added it as if it had always been there. High skirting boards, engraved switch plates, additional minimal mouldings. Details that feel inevitable rather than added.

Vincent's wall finishes gave each room its own atmosphere. Moody oil lacquer in the fumoir, delicate stucco in the living room, ochre linen in the dining room. A bedroom conceived as a 1930s boudoir that feels as current as it feels period. A bathroom so Art Deco it happens to be exactly what contemporary interiors crave again. Each room its own world. Together they feel like one.