2026, video essay, 13’20”

In 2023, the largest property sale in Belgian history took place. Twenty-one former European Commission buildings entered the upward spiral, passing through competitions and investment strategies, ready to acquire new owners and prices determined by the neoliberal rhythms and rules of the housing market in which every square meter means opportunity and profit. Their sale coincides with the European Union’s recognition of a “housing crisis”. However, to speak of a crisis as if it were an unfortunate condition that has arrived among us, is to obscure the responsibility. The unaffordability and inaccessibility of housing are the result of decades of deliberate political choices enshrined in policy, markets and laws, and embodied in the future of these twenty-one former EU buildings. 

21 Ways To Make Housing Affordable 4 Ever takes place at 24 and 28 Rue Demot in Brussels, two of the twenty-one former European Commission buildings. At its centre is a moving lectern: displaced from its institutional setting. 

This video essay was produced as part of the *DEMOT Affordable Housing Plan, a counter-competition proposing the transformation of two of these former European Commission buildings at 24 and 28 Rue Demot in Brussels.

Made by

Thessa Krüger, Eimi Leggett, Vittorio Romieri, Ferre Vander Elst, Vincent Vergote, Mumtaaz Viaene, Cesar Vromman

Special thanks to our generous interviewees.