The architect, urbanist and artist Luc Deleu sees architecture as a form of visual, sculptural and political thinking concerning the relationship between public and private space. In 1970 he founded ‘T.O.P. office’: a firm for the study of urban development and architecture. The firm’s motivation and goal were to question architecture and urban design and their position and function in society. Deleu soon became convinced that in many respects our cities would be improved if we built less. In his view, the rapid evolution of communication and mobility should make it possible to lead a more nomadic life again. His initial projects therefore emphasised the wealth of potential of mobility as against the rigid immobility of physical buildings. They argued against the privilege that immovable property enjoys as places to live and work. Together with his wife Laurette Gillemot (1946) and a few members of staff, Deleu is still generating visionary ideas on urbanisation, sometimes with a utopian tendency, which respond inventively to the ecological, economic, cultural, social, geographic and administrative-political reality and future.
