Kulturzentrum KANAL - Centre Pompidou Brüssel

Quartier Kanal has a double ambition: the implementation of a perfectly equipped machinery that facilitates various kinds of art exhibitions, and the reactivation of a remarkable piece of architectural heritage as an open and inviting public space. This ambition is in line with the aspirations of the Citroën garage at the time of its conception: to become a city in the city. As such, Quartier Kanal will be an animated public space, a museum, an incubator of culture, a beacon, but above all, an open house intended for all the inhabitants of Brussels.

The Citroën building is an icon of industrial modernism of the early 20th century. With its wingspan as large as an urban island and its iconic showroom, it dominates the north of the small ring road adjacent to the canal. Over the last few decades, the building's presence has been silent, a latent symbol of a declining automobile industry. Today, the project "Kanal" wants to resuscitate its importance and give it back its status of "city in the city", aspired by André Citroën in the 30s. Located north of the city’s pentagon and along the canal in the midst of urban retransformation, Quartier Kanal will act as a catalyst for an intensification of Brussels' cultural life and yet, an urban center for a changing neighborhood.

Nevertheless, this ambition has some challenges. A building that is too valuable and unique to be demolished, although too fragile and even too characteristic to be easily modified, requires a specific urban and constructive approach.

How can a museum become an open public space while duly fulfilling its main function as a space dedicated to art? How to integrate the magnificent and very precarious existing structure, intensify its splendour and its intrinsic qualities (light, transparent, spatial), without compromising its architecture?

By inserting two new pertinent volumes — one a stacked series of gallery’s, the other a silo as a container of the archives and library —, the halls are freed from technical and practical burdens that would have been imposed upon them if they had accommodated the museum. This radical intervention transforms the complex to an urban ensemble composed of different volumes with clear typological characteristics, and the surrounding halls as their common matrix.

The halls – the former workshop - are stripped of the additional constructions which have been added during the lifetime of the building, and returned to their original, ultra-light state. A minimal upgrade of its envelope creates a tempered outside climate. The addition of various trees and urban furniture makes for a public space that holds the middle between a market hall and a greenhouse. A mezzannine level provides an overview, organises acces to the various functions, and allows for smaller, boxed functions to be installed under its surface.