Designed by Charles Vandenhove and his colleagues between 1962 and 1987, the University Hospital (CHU) of Liège has the structure of a car park: open concrete floors supported by columns. It is the building’s details and materialization that help to avoid generic, stereotypical modernism while bypassing superficial postmodern historicism. A conversation with Prudent De Wispelaere, a long-time collaborator of Charles Vandenhove.

Christophe Van Gerrewey (A+) : You started working for Vandenhove in 1977. What stage was the hospital at then?