Retrospective exhibition : Simone Guillissen-Hoa

The CIVA presents the first monographic exhibition devoted to the life, work and legacy of the Chinese-born Belgian architect Simone Guillissen-Hoa (1916-1996). A promoter of modernist architecture, she was one of the first women to set up her own architectural practice in Belgium. Her career and personal life constantly challenged the limits and conventions of gender, origin and religion.

Her life spanned the major events of the twentieth century, from the beginnings of the Chinese Revolution to post-war Reconstruction and the Resistance in occupied Belgium. In the 1950s, she was a member of the Soroptimist association, an organisation that defended women's rights, and in the 1970s she helped to found the International Union of Women Architects.

The exhibition presents her architectural projects, her thoughts on architecture and her struggles, as well as her professional and private life, through a wide range of archival documents. By entering Guillissen-Hoa's artistic circle, made up of figures such as Léon Spilliaert, Alfred Roth, Max Bill, Enrico Castellani, Tapta, Henry and Nele van de Velde, the exhibition explores the influences and collaborations that shaped his artistic and intellectual career.
 

At the centre of the exhibition, a film specially produced by artists Eva Giolo and Aglaia Konrad, presents several of Simone Guillissen-Hoa's buildings and highlights the way in which the architect uses, adapts and translates the elements of modernist language.