Luc Deleu & T.O.P. office

For Future Plans 1970-2020, curators Peter Swinnen and Anne Judong enjoyed nine months of unlimited access to the archives of T.O.P. office. The title also serves as the filter through which to explore the living archive. Which projects, whether conceived in the 1970s or 2000s, hold the intelligent promise of a future plan? And how can they ignite the designers, architects, urban designers, ecologists, lawyers, administrations and policy makers of today and tomorrow? A future plan in itself.

For half a century, Luc Deleu & T.O.P. office has served as the seedbed for this striking exhibition. When architect and artist Luc Deleu and his wife Laurette Gillemot founded T.O.P. office in 1970, they were acutely aware of the social power of architecture, but also of the art and urgency of harnessing it. Architecture as an uncompromising tool for highlighting the scale of the world and persistently calling it into question. Armed with a merciless but humorous logic, a firm belief in the freedom of the individual and a far-reaching concern for ecology, T.O.P. office continues to hold up a mirror to citizens and politicians. Always uninvited. Quite simply, because it is necessary. The fact that the majority of projects will never be built is now beside the point. They exist and stubbornly continue to call attention to the vital issues.