Jozef Schellekens Built a Double House, Not a Solitary Manifesto

The Flemish heritage inventory describes two adjoining two-storey volumes in an L-shaped composition, with flat roofs, elevated terraces, garages and roof terraces. Schellekens planned the property for himself and Theo Op de Beeck, not as an isolated architect's villa. The official project archive dates design and construction to 1934–36 and names both residents in its title.

That correction changes the reading. A double house negotiates adjacency, land, separate families and a shared public face; it cannot be reduced to a young architect staging his own taste. Schellekens's bride Mietje Vogels was closely involved in their home, while the Op de Beeck half completed the urban and social commission. RIMOWA photographed one celebrated environment inside a larger paired work.

• Address: Steenweg op Mol 64–66, Turnhout
• Clients and residents: Schellekens and Op de Beeck households

Schellekens expected to establish his practice at home. He placed office and reception functions toward the street and living room and kitchen toward the rear garden. Visitors passed a narrow, low entrance and tiny consultation room before entering a double-height reception hall. The contrast produces drama through sequence rather than expensive area—a young architect making professional authority spatially persuasive.

The interior continued into fabrication. Schellekens designed and painted murals, built cabinets with his furniture-maker father and asked a local blacksmith to make tubular pieces informed by Mart Stam. Those relationships complicate the idea of a perfectly single-authored Gesamtkunstwerk. The consistency is real, but so is the network of family skill and local labour that made it possible.

• Public zone: office, consultation and double-height reception
• Private zone: living room and kitchen opening toward the garden

Schellekens completed the duplex in 1936 at age 27, creating a major early example of Turnhout brick modernism. Its survival depends on protected status, conservation planning and custodians rather than the 2024 photography. Current public access is not established by the RIMOWA story, so readers should not treat a private editorial visit as a standing museum invitation.

Our verdict: the most compelling story is not bold colour alone but a young architect joining marriage, prospective children, professional practice and a friend's household in one disciplined pair. Always call it a duplex or double residence before shortening the name. The correction restores scale, clients and neighbourliness to a work too easily consumed as one extraordinary living room.

• Most effective device: compression before the double-height hall
• Most important correction: this is a paired residence, not one detached house