From Belgian farmland to Warsaw's Wola. Matexi and the art of building neighbourhoods

Eighty years of the group, fifteen years in Poland. Matexi consistently repeats one sentence that sets the company apart from most developers: we do not sell flats, we create neighbourhoods. Behind this slogan lies a concrete method of working with the city, developed over generations — and its roots reach back to the Belgian countryside just after the Second World War.

A family company with a long memory

Matexi's story begins in 1945 in Meulebeke, where three Vande Vyvere brothers — Gerard, Robert and Herman, sons of a farming family — founded a company whose name loosely translates as 'a company dealing in real estate transactions'. The business model was simple at first: the company bought up larger tracts of agricultural land and divided them into smaller plots, which it sold to families and farmers. Over time the business moved through successive stages — from land parcelling, through house building, to the role of developer of entire districts, specialising in regeneration and mixed-use projects. Today the company is run by the family's fourth generation, and Matexi remains the largest Belgian residential development group, also present in Luxembourg and Poland.

The Polish chapter since 2010

Matexi entered the Polish market in November 2010, opening an office in Warsaw. The team was built by Mirek Bednarek and Sief Frantzen, and the first project was the intimate Górce 142 development in Warsaw's Bemowo — a building with 50 flats, completed in the third quarter of 2013 and sold out in full. Since then the portfolio of completed developments has grown to nearly 3,400 flats in Warsaw and Kraków, and the company's land bank allows for the construction of more than 3,000 further units. 2025 was doubly symbolic for the company — Matexi Polska celebrated 15 years of operation, while the group as a whole marked its 80th anniversary.

City-making in practice

At Matexi, the 'Welcome to the neighbourhood' philosophy is not merely a marketing slogan but, as the company states, a way of thinking for the whole group. In practice this means an emphasis on shared spaces, greenery and mixed use, which turns an estate into part of the city rather than an enclave. The company describes itself as a district developer that has specialised for two decades in regeneration projects — restoring function and life to the urban fabric. The flagship example is Warsaw's 'Kolska od nowa' — a scheme comprising nearly 600 flats on the site of a former industrial quarter — while in Kraków its projects form part of the transformation of riverside areas of the city. On a smaller scale, the company designs shared playgrounds, outdoor gyms, gardens and terraces, and supports local businesses around its developments.

Neighbourhood as product and as responsibility

This approach also has a social dimension. As part of its responsibility policy, Matexi Polska runs its own programme, 'Developer of Possibilities — Building Children's Future', along with further initiatives addressed to communities around its developments. As a result, 'the neighbourhood' is not, for the company, a slogan from a brochure but a category around which both the design side and the image-building side of its activity are organised.

For the Polish market, still learning to think in terms of districts rather than single buildings, Matexi's experience is an interesting point of reference. The company shows that place-making is not a fashion but a method — developed over 80 years of working with land, homes and cities, and consistently carried from Belgium to Warsaw's Wola and Kraków's Podgórze.