After setting up the Grand Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar in 1908, which would later morph into Walter Gropius’s Bauhaus (1919), architect Henry van de Velde established the Institut Supérieur Industriel de Bruxelles in 1927. The modern-day institution is housed in part of the former premises of the Abbaye de La Cambre/Abdij Ter Kameren, after which it is named. It was based on the same principles as the Bauhaus, with van de Velde remaining as its director until 1936. In 1972, the design of the restaurant/cafeteria was put in the hands of one of its teachers, architect and designer Christophe Gevers. Head of the Furniture and Design workshop at the Institute from 1960 to 1993, Gevers broke the record for time in this role, teaching 33 year groups of design students. Self-taught, he began his career at the furniture firm De Coene, but cemented his reputation at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair with his restaurant Le Cap d’Argent. He then made a name for himself in restaurant design, overseeing the Taverne des Beaux-Arts and then the Au Vieux Saint Martin in the Grand Sablon/Grote Zavel. The latter’s owner Albert Niels would subsequently commission him to create various other iconic restaurants: La Marie Joseph, Au Duc d’Arenberg and, last but not least, Le Canterbury, in 1992. For La Cambre's cafeteria space, Gevers designed functional modernist furniture, simple yet ingenious, with table and bench modules connected by a tubular base. Just try out the curved seat of the benches to appreciate how comfortable they are.