Discover the story behind the portrait of Belgium’s maverick salvager-designer, featured in the Circularity issue In the May 2025 issue of The Architectural Review, themed Circularity, the AR commissioned a Reputations profile of the little-known Belgian architect, salvager and entrepreneur Marcel Raymaekers. This maverick designer ‘never qualified as an architect’, write James Westcott, Lionel Devlieger, Arne Vande Capelle, Stijn Colon and Aude-Line Dulière in their text, but ‘that did not stop him from procuring the materials for, designing and building around 150 villas across Belgium.’ These eccentric buildings, which are often dismissed as so many ugly Belgian houses, provide an unlikely source of lessons for contemporary material reuse, the authors argue. For every Reputations story, the AR’s editors commission an illustrator to create a portrait of the subject, incorporating elements from their work, or evoking its spirit. Raymaekers’ portrait was created by Laslo Antal, a Hungarian artist and musician based in Berlin who contributed to the magazine in 2020 with a cover design for its Criticism issue, and in 2021 with a Reputations portrait of Kurt Schwitters in its Waste issue. ‘When creating the portrait of Marcel Raymaekers, my goal was to develop an idea that would integrate his architectural and design approach,’ Antal tells the AR. ‘I wanted to create an image using these concepts rather than simply collaging or drawing a building or a part of his existing architectural work.’ Beyond using the murky palette that Raymaekers frequently used in his exterior and interior designs, Antal was particularly inspired by Raymaekers’ practice of giving objects new and different meanings by repurposing them, ‘using the old in a new way,’ he explains. ‘I also found a strong personal connection to his approach of working in 3Drather than drawing architectural plans on paper.’ The illustration invokes Raymaekers’ features by using protruding plastic cups for his eyes, and cardboard for his nose, eyebrows and mouth. Additionally, part of the neck was made using the same plastic cups cut in half – ‘a homage,’ Antal says, ‘to the fighter jet skylights that famously appear in his House Klechtermans of 1970.’ Read Marcel Raymaekers’ full Reputations profile, and explore the rest of the Circularity issue here. Laslo Antal’s portfolio can be found here. 2025-05-15 AR Editors Share AR May 2025CircularityBuy Now #behind #illustration #laslo #antal #his