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Western, Knokke
![](https://mouton.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/0730-1-881x1174.jpg)
designers:
Dirk Zoete & Hugo Vanneste
client:
Gemeente Knokke
general contractor:
Depret nv
location:
Westkapelle, hoek Dudzelestraat-Dorpsstraat
status:
completed in 2011
The Western Tower, a 10m high art object with a diameter of 6m, is situated on the entrance road of Westkapelle, Knokke. The tower rises like a beacon in the flat polder landscape. It reminds one of a temple with its inner sanctum enclosed within a circular vertical stack of brown ceramic pipe sections. It is also an exhibition pavilion and, like a Russian doll, it houses a smaller work of art by Dirk Zoete on the inside. A semicircle of the same diameter serves as an entrance to the site. Its opening faces the outside world and embraces visitors before leading them to the tower along a raised concrete path that runs through the landscape.
A cruciform steel brace was instinctively integrated into the architecture as a structural frame for the stack of ceramic pipes. Structure and art have been developed simultaneously and with mutual respect to each other. The cruciform steel brace and rigid connections between beams and trusses make the tower torsionally rigid, rather like a round Vierendeel Truss. Vertical stanchions serve as a stacking backbone for the pipes, which each extend over two stanchions using stretcher bond. The structure of the bracing forms the architectural ribs of the tower. Two tension and compression bars have been added inside the space to increase the wind stability of the tower without detracting from the desired spatial proportions. In a sense, architecture and structure oppose one another yet also merge together into a unified whole. The structure and architecture is fully developed and modulated by the size and stacking of the pipes.
client:
Gemeente Knokke
general contractor:
Depret nv
location:
Westkapelle, hoek Dudzelestraat-Dorpsstraat
status:
completed in 2011
![](https://mouton.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/0730-2-881x1174.jpg)
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