Boekentoren

BE-Gent

Restoration of an icon

The last great work of Henry van de Velde is the Boekentoren (book tower) in Ghent. The Belgian architect and designer was commissioned to design the university library and all of the interior details at the beginning of the 1930s. In 2009, after many years of planning, the Boekentoren was given the green light to undergo an urgently needed renovation. It took around five months just to relocate the 48 kilometres of books and documents to a depot.