Architect

Ivan Van Mossevelde (Wachtebeke, 1940) is a contemporary Flemish architect, renowned for the design of modernistic business buildings and homes and the restoration and upgrading of the historic Italian village of Labro.

Van Mossevelde was born in Wachtebeke as son of Gerard Van Mossevelde and Hilda Coppens. His father was successively a teacher at St. Amandus, St. Lucas and St. Antonius Institute in Ghent and possibly formed the foundation for his architecture education at the Saint-Lucas architectural institute in Ghent. As a true Italophile, Van Mossevelde draws to Italy in 1985 and begins a practice in Sammezzano. In Italy he is working on the restoration of the historic village of Labro.

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In 1968, he designed a striking house in Wetteren, consisting of 3 intermittent sections, and which is modern and timeless today. In the 1970s Van Mossevelde used closed brutal concrete walls that he initially applied in the villa for art collector Roger Matthys-Colle in Deurle, but later used in a company building for the Kortrijkse Katoenspinnerij in Harelbeke, in a home in Sint-Denijs-Westrem and in a doctor's office in Ghent.

In 1976 Van Mossevelde made an interesting design for the Aquavia headquarters in Landegem and the office of Batibo Investments in Drongen, where he uses a striking steel structure. He will apply the same design principle in later designs for business buildings as in the superstructure of the Floralis office building in Sint-Denijs-Westrem.

Villa M in Sint-Martens-Latem is a modernist bungalow built in 1977 on behalf of Prof. Henri Muller. This property is an artwork in itself and a statement of pure modernism. The building is distinguished by its open layout and unique interaction with the surrounding unspoilt nature.

In the mid 1980s he designed a number of homes inspired by post-modernism such as a house in Waasmunster and Rombaut house in Lovendegem.

At the end of 1990 he introduced the design of the town hall of Sint-Martens-Latem, which takes into account the specific context of the artist village. The building has a number of post-modern elements that refer to the adjacent church and is also strongly focused on the surrounding landscape to which the Leie belongs.