The Belgian architect Simone Guillissen-Hoa (1916–1996) is unknown to many. Yet she was a champion of modernist architecture and one of the first women in Belgium to set up her own architectural practice. The donation of her personal archive to the CIVA in Brussels provided an opportunity to rescue her life and work from obscurity and to pay her the tribute she deserves.

Simone Guillissen-Hoa was born in Beijing in 1916. Her father was a Chinese engineer and her mother a Polish-Jewish writer. At the age of twelve, she emigrated to Paris with her mother and older brother – who would later also become an architect. In the 1930s, she moved to Belgium on her own and began studying architecture at La Cambre in Brussels. She graduated in 1938, becoming the fourth woman in Belgian history to successfully complete the course at La Cambre.

Thanks to Charles Van Nueten, one of her lecturers at La Cambre and a member of the CIAM (Congrès internationaux d’Architecture Moderne), she was able to undertake an internship with the modernist architect Alfred Roth in Zurich. Her deep bond with Roth and other prominent Swiss avant-garde artists, such as Max Bill, would prove lasting and formative. She had meanwhile married Jean Guillissen, a Belgian scientist and communist activist. Although she left him before the Second World War, she continued to use his name for the rest of her life. Guillissen himself joined the resistance during the war and was executed by the Nazis in 1942. Simone was deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp and later to the Agfa commando, a satellite camp of Dachau.

An exhibition paying tribute to her life, work and legacy is on display at CIVA until 22 September 2024.

Practical information

24 April 2024 > 22 September 2024

Tuesday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 6.00 pm

CIVA, Rue des Trésors 55, 1050 Brussels