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BEAUTY OF LIFELONG LEARNING


After co-founding the architectural firm Mecanoo in Delft in 1984, Francine Houben has enjoyed a wide-ranging career, receiving international acclaim for a portfolio that encompasses universities, libraries, theatres, residential areas, museums and hotels. Will Moffitt speaks to the ABB LEAF Awards 2020/21 Lifetime Achievement winner, and creative director of Mecanoo, about the influences that have shaped her career, Mecanoo’s latest projects, including the Martin Luther King Memorial Library, gender disparities in architecture, and the slippery notion of legacy.


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rancine Houben is struggling to find the right word in English. Talking to me from her


understated home office in Delft, the ABB LEAF Awards Lifetime Achievement winner is discussing a concept that has become something of a taboo topic in architecture of late: designing for beauty.


Houben is recalling her early work on affordable housing with Mecanoo,


the architectural firm she co-founded in 1984 as a 25-year-old. Among other things, the group maintained that affordable houses could still be great works of architecture. “We made a some big changes at that time [regarding] affordable housing. We thought that it should be beautiful, because beauty is…” Houben pauses for a moment. “Beauty is a human right.”


LEAF REVIEW / www.leading-architects.com


Roger Neve


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