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OPEN SPACE, 2020 From a modernist office tower of the Glorious Thirty in a state of transient decay, Open space reverses the "classic" ruin/nature representation that can be observed in Flemish landscape painting from the 17th century. Unlike the "composed veduta" by painters from the north where you can see ruins of ancient Rome surrounded by an Arcadian landscape where nature and culture unite harmoniously, here the landscape no longer welcomes ruin, it makes part of the ruin. The mountainous landscape used, refers to the aesthetics of the sublime, giving a tone of confrontation between man and the forces of nature. By introducing a landscape “freely” into this brutalist setting, Open space also plays with the relationship with nature, materials and landscapes, especially with the spatial continuity from inside to outside which was at the center of the concerns of the first modernist architects who wanted to put man back at the heart of "Creation" thanks to technique.

THE LOST BET, 2019 This fiction imagines the Convent of the Tourette, abandoned and entirely covered with vegetation, giving birth to a new unique work of art, where nature and culture come together in a harmonious whole. The Tourette convent built by Le Corbusier between 1956 and 1960 was commissioned by the Dominican friars. The vocation of the Dominicans being to preach, their convents are often located in big cities, contrary to other orders which have for vow to isolate themselves. Eager to get closer to Lyon, the brothers chose a site about 30 km northwest of the metropolis, betting that the latter, constantly growing, would one day join the convent . . . it never happened.

LE CORBUSIER BY HIMSEFL, 2015 This fiction imagines The Notre-Dame-du-Haut chapel built by Le Corbusier between 1951 and 1955 on the Bourlémont hill in Ronchamp, entirely covered with three paintings painted by Le Corbusier on the walls of Villa E-1027 located in Roquebrune Cap Martin. Some Anglo-Saxon critics qualify the pictorial intrusion at E-1027 as symbolic "rape". The frescoes are in oppositon to the concept of purist architecture by Eileen Gray based on pure volumes and solid colors, and the ideas of Le Corbusier himself, for whom architecture could not be "decorated", seeing in the artist an enemy of architecture, destroying and disqualifying the wall. He called on architects to use only polychromy. Le Corbusier had a daily practice of painting alongside his career as an architect. His ideas on mural painting will gradually evolve, no doubt, influenced by Picasso, Fernand Léger and his desire to synthesize the arts. We can see in the architecture of Notre Dame Du Haut an evolution similar to that in his painting, after a purist beginning influenced by the industrial motif, Le Corbusier will be inspired by forms from the natural world.

THE BEEHIVE, 2016 L'unité de Briey, built between 1959 and 1960, is the fourth of five of the Le Corbusier housing units. The unit began experiencing difficulties rather quickly. An economic crisis plunged the inhabitants into serious financial problems. The building gradually became empty and was on the point of being dynamited in 1984. In 1989, under the sponsorship of international architects and artists, the organisation 'First Street' contributed greatly to the rescue of the l'unité de Briey. A renovation was carried out in 2007 and will be completed in 2010. L’unité d’habitation’ model or ‘Cité radieuse’ is the culmination of Le Corbusier’s research on collective housing. Initially, he had imagined a ‘vertical garden-housing project’ a synthesis between an individual dwelling and collective housing. The goal of the housing unit was to create ‘developments’ of a new kind, harmonious and close to nature. Le Corbusier wanted to incorporate into these units a set of facilities needed for the development of social life: shops, schools, sports halls... In the years following World War II, a large number of architects followed this housing construction model, seeing it as a quick and economical way to build housing for larger numbers. Unfortunately, all the functional and spatial ideas conceived by Le Corbusier disappeared, and all that remained were the large concrete blocks lost within a landscape that was becoming an industrial zone.

LUXEMBOURG, 2013 Delory offers, for CarréRotondes, a very personal rearrangement of the urban characteristics of the buildings photographed in Luxembourg, where he uncovers the angles, proportions and perspectives. This commission to the photographer was placed within the framework of la Triennale Jeune Création 2013 "You I Landscape" Carré Rotondes. The theme of the landscape, and more specifically Luxembourg’s landscape, came about because of the extraordinary arrival of Xavier Delory, during the time of la Triennale jeune creation 2013. With Luxembourg, the Belgian artist presents a reflection on the bourgeoisification of the popular neighbourhoods, whereby the social and economic profile of the inhabitants is transformed for the exclusive benefit of a higher social stratum.

DOMINO, 2010 Critique of a functionnal and profitable architecture, symbol of vanity and fragility.

AFTER SOL LEWITT, 2019 With, "After Sol LeWitt", Xavier Delory offers a unique interpretation of the work of Sol LeWitt, the founder of conceptual art. This Urbex style fiction depicts an abandoned house whose walls reveal the remains of Sol Lewitt’s wall drawings. Xavier Delory brings the conceptual work of the American artist face to face with the romantic expressionism of abandoned places. The erasure of the mural caused by the architecture’s dilapidation evokes the transient side of Lewitt's art. And thus the photographer continues to explore the dialogue between architecture, ruin and painting.

POST-MORTEM, 2016 The church is part of a commission of several buildings made to Le Corbusier, by Eugène Claudius-Petit, mayor of the town of Firminy. The project, baptised 'Firminy-Vert', forms the largest architectural complex built by Le Corbusier in Europe. This site includes: a cultural centre, a stadium, a swimming pool, a housing unit and the Church of Saint-Pierre. Construction of the church began in 1970, five years after the death of the architect. Due to budgetary and political problems, the project experienced many disruptions. By 1978, only the substructure was built and for 30 years this base, nicknamed the 'blockhouse', remained cut off from the rest of the building. In 1993, the town finally become aware of the cultural and tourist interest in the building as well as in the architectural complex of the Firminy-Vert site. Work resumed in 2004 under the control of the Le Corbusier Foundation and under the direction of José Oubrerie, a former colleague, who had assisted Le Corbusier in the project design and watched over the first phase of the church construction. The church finally opened its doors on November 29th, 2006. The building, not officially a church, serves primarily as a witness to the architectural work of Le Corbusier.

SACRILEGE, 2014 Villa Savoye, the best known work of the French-Swiss architect, Le Corbusier, was built between 1928 and 1931. Villa purists say that this icon of the Modern Movement completes the cycle of white houses. With this 'Living Machine', Le Corbusier sets in place the 5 five-points of new architecture (the theory provides the basis of the Modern Movement): pilings, roof terrace, open plan, window bar and open facade. In addition to these 5 points, the first modernist architects favour expensive ornaments and a minimization of decor. Nowadays, the Villa Savoye has become a 'museum' of impeccable whiteness, yet it almost disappeared altogether. During World War II, the villa was badly damaged, in 1962, after years of neglect, the first salvage work was carried out under the direction of the Minister of Culture at the time, André Malraux. In 1997, after three phases of restoration, the house was opened to the public.

​COUNTER-COMPOSITION, 2017 This fiction depicts a dialogue between the elementary, dynamic and asymmetrical architecture of Gerry Rietveld and the oblique surfaces of Theo Van Doesburg's simultaneous counter-composition painting (1929). Built in Utrecht in 1924, Gerry Rietveld’s Schröder house was commissioned by Mrs. Truus Schröder-Schräder. The house has been recognised as one of the first symbols of the modern movement in architecture. This work by the Dutch architect is considered as a brilliant spatial translation of the Principles of neo-plastic art elaborated by the founders of the De Stijl group. In 1917, Theo Van Doesburg, Piet Mondrian and a few others created the magazine called De Stijl and founded the group of the same name. De Stijl invented a set of formal rules that would lead to a so-called universal representation, reducing painting to its elements: horizontal and vertical straight lines, plane surfaces, rectangles, and the primary colours (red, yellow, and blue) combined with the neutrals (black, gray, and white). Between 1917 and 1924, Van Doesburg (painter, poet, typographer, architect, writer ...) continues to respect these initial directives and confines himself to the exclusive use of the verticals and horizontals, then from 1924, he allows the inclusion of diagonals in his compositions, and repeatedly liberates himself from the rule of primary colours. This gave rise to a new pictorial tendency which the artist baptised "elementarism". Legend has it that Mondrian then moves away from the De Stijl movement, as the basic catechism has been transgressed. ​ ​

BARRE D'ÎLOT, 2010-2013 This fiction imagine a self-constructed towers built from typical Brussels houses. It's a reflection about the urban block, the framework of the historic city, its break-up and its replacement by residential and office towers.

GENTRIFICATION, 2012 It's a refers to the changes that result when wealthier people ("gentry") acquire or rent property in low income and working class communities. Often old industrial buildings are converted to luxurious residences.

HABITAT, 2008 Our countryside (in Belgium as well as in a many other western countries) is monopolized by one specific type of houses called ‘clé sur porte’ (turnkey) (def: Urban prefab cluster of similar forms implanted in the landscape without any effort of integration). The cycle ‘Habitat’ throws a look at this type of ‘architecture’. The concept of protection and stereotyped block is pushed to its extremes (similar to our withdrawal into on ourselves and our formated lifes).

CLOSED ON SUNDAY, 2009 Have our shoppingmalls become our new temples? Has the religious cult been replaced by the cult of consumption? Do these new places of communion and their catchy slogans supplant our ancient monuments and their divine words? This fiction is not very remote from the frequent use of the religious symbol by the commercial. Our commercial culture sucks the lifeblood from our collective memory, emptying it of all it’s meaning, keeping only it’s shell. Does this all prove that our society has cut itself off from its history?

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