The design of Kouter Clinic,  located in Ghents´city centre, brings together a neoclassical building with a contemporary clinic.

The neoclassical discipline has always put first representativeness above functionality. In its origins, the buildings´stairwell was dimensioned to impress, not based on the number of passers-by.  With the new use - a separate private unit in a divided huge bank building - the staircase still aims to achieve that effect. The disused, neoclassical staircase and the fake door openings suggest something that is no longer there.

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While its architecture style provides a robust, serious and timeless frame, the additions designed to organize the medical practice introduce a different scale. Light-footed, changeable, fragile and a more human dimension, together with other elements such as furniture, box, screens and display cases, conveys to the clinic a sense of sacrality and peacefulness.

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Photos (1-4): Kris Vandamme