Brussels has a contrasting mix of cultural heritage and novel technology. The city is known as an important cultural and trade node of central Europe since the Middle Ages. By 1958, Brussels’ World’s Fair Expo 58 marked a milestone on Belgium’s industrialization and technological advancement. Today, Brussels is uniquely characterized as both historic and modern, national and European, regional and cosmopolitan.

 

The project starts with diagraming the flow of pedestrians. By lifting the wavy topographic objects in between pedestrian flows, it emphasizes the intersecting path of movement and centers the historical fountain. The wavy roofs mark the entries of the program space of the arts house underneath, resulting in no back-side and no front-side building condition to regain the plaza and urban square in the city.  

 

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The three raised island roofs are the only above-ground structure. The grass-covered roof serves as a seating area for public gathering, while the glass roofs bring nature daylight into the art laboratory and fabrication shop. Transparent coated glass allows certain program activities to be seen from the street level, thereby encouraging communication and attracting engagement from the public ground and underground activities in different levels. The above-ground glass is deliberately selected, with its aesthetically modern symbolism contrasting the surrounding historical building façade, and echoing the mixture characteristics of contemporary Brussels. The glass façade of the new arts house reflects the sky and historical context, representing a new relationship between the old and the new. That is its essence - in the mediation between presumed opposites. It is this reality that the project intends to express. It is borne out of the creative tension between and excitation for the future, and respect for futures past.