A new academic year means a new Existenz team and new Existenz cafés.  Since I don’t live in Leuven anymore, these cafés are the perfect excuse to go back and catch up with old friends.  (I even wished I could fly back for an evening of Existenz festivities when I was living in Lisbon.)  This year’s opening event was called Kaffee Weltevree and took place in the courtyard of our beloved castle (the home of Leuven’s architecture department).  The combination of the fairy tale like surroundings, the live music, the friends I hadn’t seen in a while and the obligatory beers resulted in a great evening.  I’ve called this city home for five and a half years and nights like this remind me why.

(You can find Existenz on facebook here to stay up to date with their activities.)

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If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know my love for Existenz, the organization of first master students of architecture in Leuven, who make it their goal for the year to turn an abandoned building into a playground for everyone who loves art and architecture (and an occasional drink and dance), and this for only one week.  As every year, this year’s edition was a blast.  The location, the old bottling plant of Stella Artois, was breath-takingly beautiful (that light!) and I think the photos show it well, which explains the photo overload after the jump. (In case you can’t tell: I got myself a new camera (canon eos 650d) and I’m thrilled with its results!) 

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Yesterday I showed you how amazing the Existenz Maximum location looked this year, today I’ll give you an impression of what happened there at night…  There was a lot of dancing, making new friends (preferably with tiger socks), dressing up to do the lindy hop, cosmic leggings and surprised people gazing out the window at the construction workers who started destroying the other part of the building while we hadn’t made it to our beds yet.  What a week!

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Remember this?  Like every year, the Existenz Maximum week took place in an abandoned building in Leuven, this time the old management buildings of Stella were the place to be.  Unlike last year, I’m no part of the Existenz team anymore, which meant I could fully enjoy all of it!  Of course I never let an opportunity pass by to take photograph or two, so here’s a first small (hmm) selection!

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