Lunch with an Architect is intended as a forum for reflection and discussion to improve the quality of architecture in Brussels.

Through 3 meetings a year, Lunch with an Architect, in cooperation with Flagey, provides the real estate world with a window on the major contemporary events in the world of architecture, the more specifically Belgian issues, and the emblematic projects under way.

To launch our fifth season, we are delighted to welcome Sou Fujimoto, one of the leading figures of Japanese minimalist architecture, hailed as architect of the year in Japan (JIA Prize).

Born in 1971, he designs airy and transparent buildings capable of ensuring a smooth transition between private and public spaces. The innovative character of his works does not stem from a search for complex forms. Quite the contrary, Sou Fujimoto relies on simple geometric forms where the combinations between the parts are of paramount importance. His reflections produce ground-breaking results reminiscent of the innovative wind of his spiritual mentor Le Corbusier. Man and nature, interior and exterior, past and future, hollow and filled, intimacy and bonding, are the structuring elements of Sou Fujimoto’s work. He often resorts to natural metaphors to describe his work. He returns to the essence of being human and the relation with human society as the basis of each project.

Sou Fujimoto sees architecture as the art of building places for separating and linking and hopes that his edifices leave room not only for transparency, division and identification, but also a wide range of relations between individuals as well as between the individual and society. A place must have the capacity to create open-mindedness, empathy and solidarity -- an entire programme which we invite you to discover through his projects, built or otherwise, such as L’arbre Blanc [the White Tree] delivered this year in Montpellier, the Mille Arbres [Thousand Trees] project in Paris, considered as a model for 21st century urban planning, and the House of Music in Budapest, or the Delta Tower in Brussels.

Designed by his offices in Tokyo and Paris, his projects are attracting attention from the world over, as attested by the impressive number of prizes, citations and competitions won by the firm as well as the many exhibitions and books devoted to the work of Sou Fujimoto.

Flagey, F()rum