BRUSSELS.- Ouest – the Brussels architecture firm of Stéphane Damsin and Jan Haerens – invites us to view the city as a living organism, in permanent transformation. Their practice is enthusiastically and respectfully rooted in the existing dense and heterogeneous urban environment. In the exhibition, they present five of their completed projects, as well as real and fictional stories about the city by numerous urban planners, writers and artists. On 14 October 2025, they will inaugurate the exhibition with a lecture. An evening where urban thinking, architecture and imagination come together.

Ouest is a Brussels-based architecture firm founded in 2009 by architects Stéphane Damsin and Jan Haerens. Today they have a staff of around ten. Ouest develops a context-based practice, geared towards various types of projects, from single-family homes and community facilities to more large-scale cultural infrastructures. Their designs aim to strengthen urban dynamics and life in society.

Working mainly on existing buildings in urban environments, the firm has become an expert in adaptive reuse. Taking a respectful, committed and non-dogmatic approach, they seek to reveal the intrinsic qualities of buildings and their surroundings, contributing in the process to the sustainable revalorization of ordinary heritage.

In the exhibition Urban Legend, Ouest share their fascination with the city by addressing several themes that show the city’s richness and complexity. The city is presented here as a stage for human relations, a living organism, at once real and imaginary, and the setting for a great many stories. The city enables us to work with the unfinished, to think of urbanity as a porous system, to explore the interdependencies that underpin urban dynamics, and to cultivate ambiguity as a design tool.

To explore the conditions of city life, Ouest uses tools and perspectives from other disciplines, such as urban planning, sociology, literature and cinema.

The exhibition features works by Alfredo Jaar, Brecht Evens, Juan Villoro, Meriem Chabani, Sempé, Frans Masereel, Aldo van Eyck, Akira Yamaguchi, Benoit Guillaume, Mega Mingiedi, Lorenzo Mattoti, Gilbert Faestenaekens, and many others.

These reflections resonate with the projects on display: five cultural infrastructure projects in Belgium that have either been built or are under construction.
Their achievements include a number of cultural and community projects, such as the Zinneke headquarters, in collaboration with Rotor, the transformation of the Théâtre Jean Vilar in Louvain-la-Neuve and the recently completed cultural centre in Schaerbeek.

At their inaugural lecture on 14 October 2025 (7 p.m.), Stephane Damsin and Jan Haerens will present their exhibition and the accompanying publication. They will explore how their architecture can interact with the urban environment around it, an approach that is in keeping with their way of approaching the existing, combining architectural rigour with a broader view of the city, between the imaginary and concrete realities.

This project is part of a series of exhibitions focusing on Belgian architecture firms that have attracted international attention in recent years. The series was initiated by A+ Architecture in Belgium and Bozar. Previous exhibitions have featured the work of Dierendonckblancke, Baukunst, URA Yves Malysse Kiki Verbeeck, AgwA, NU Architectuuratelier and Rotor.

"Is the city ever done? We are fascinated by the city such as it is: imperfect, hectic, alive. For us, the city is a vast magma composed of bedrooms and bars, walls and windows, people, structures, pavements and intertwining narratives. The city is never finished, never static. It is always in a state of transformation, generating a complex dialogue between the various layers, memories, uses, bodies and buildings that compose it." -- Ouest