Building for Brussels guide-EN

Exhibition guide

Building for Brussels 

Architecture and Urban 

Transformation in Europe 

Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels 

9.10–28.11.2010

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Introductions 

Foreword 

Curatorial statement 

Exhibition overview 

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24 

32 

38 

46 

Five challenges 

Demography 

Public facilities 

Urban economy 

Mobility 

New districts 

54 

Credits 

5

Foreword 

In 2007, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of 

the Treaty of Rome, the Centre for Fine Arts organized 

the exhibition A Vision for Brussels – Imagining the 

Capital of Europe. An international team of architects 

around Pier Vittorio Aureli and Joachim Declerck, 

from the Berlage Institute, presented the results 

of a research into various possibilities of Brussels as 

capital of Europe. 

Today, three years later, we are continuing 

the thread of this reflection. Together with Emir Kir, 

secretary of state of the Brussels Capital Region, 

in the frame of the Belgian presidency of the European 

Union, we are presenting an exhibition Building for 

Brussels – Architecture and Urban Transformation 

in Europe. With the starting point of the challenges 

which Brussels as a capital is facing on the eve of an 

unseen demographic expansion, Joachim Declerck, 

from Architecture Workroom Brussels, examines 

a series of European urban development projects and 

their relevancy for the capital of Europe. 

Building for Brussels makes it clear that 

architecture and city building are more than just the 

aesthetic side of a city management : they are one of 

the main tools to answer the challenges of a capital 

city and to shape our social life and our patrimony for 

tomorrow. 

On the one hand, these two exhibitions show 

our involvement and our will to take part in the debate 

on the future development of Brussels as capital of 

Europe and on the other hand they are part of the role 


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which the Centre for Fine Arts of Brussels plays as 

a platform for the international architectural culture. 

As a cultural hub, Bozar is the place for 

local talents to be offered an international stage and 

at the same time, it plays the role of a go-between 

attracting and involving international experts. And 

thus we add our contribution to a capital which should 

develop a truly European dimension also from the 

architectural point of view. 

Paul Dujardin 

General Director, Centre for Fine Arts 

7 Foreword

Curatorial statement 

Brussels today is recognised throughout 

the world for its architecture, more particularly for 

art nouveau. And rightly so. But it seems to me 

that it is insufficiently recognised for contemporary 

architecture. In contrast to other European cities, 

Brussels has not been bold enough. It has not fully 

entered the 21st century. 

With these words, the Brussels Secretary of State for 

Planning Emir Kir announced the initiative for this 

exhibition. It is a call to Brussels to commit to a policy 

of high-quality architecture in order to lead the city 

into the 21st century. But why should a metropolis like 

Brussels invest in architecture and urban planning at a 

time when it is faced with vast social challenges? 

That is the central question of this exhibition. 

Building for Brussels argues that high-quality architecture 

and urban design projects can offer an answer 

to the city’s five metropolitan challenges: 

1 The population of Brussels is set to 

grow quickly in the coming years. 

2 Brussels has an acute shortage of 

public infrastructure such as schools 

and sports facilities. 

3 The unemployment rate in Brussels is 

among the highest in Europe. 


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4 Traffic congestion threatens to bring 

the city to a standstill. 

5 Brussels’ position as a major centre 

of supranational governance conflicts 

with its quality of living. 

Brussels is not alone in having these challenges. 

In a search for expertise and potential answers, 

the exhibition turns its gaze on other major 

European cities. Cities such as Madrid, Zürich, 

Basel, Copenhagen, Hamburg and Rotterdam have 

faced similar challenges in recent decades and 

have conducted energetic policies leading to very 

practical outcomes. Urban transformations have 

stimulated economic development, made the city 

more accessible, succeeded in establishing sufficient 

affordable housing and improved the city as a place in 

which to live. 

In the five following exhibition rooms, 

Building for Brussels shows how architecture and 

urban planning are among the most powerful tools 

for tackling these five metropolitan challenges. 

These challenges are also a unique opportunity for 

Brussels to focus in on its ambitions and to build 

tomorrow’s city. 

Joachim Declerck 

Curator 

9 Curatorial statement

Exhibition overview 

Building for Brussels addresses the five major 

social challenges which face the city of Brussels and 

investigates how architecture and planning can 

offer a solution. These problems are not insurmountable; 

on the contrary, part of the answer already 

lies within each problem. 

The exhibition calls for social problems to 

be seen as an opportunity, a chance or a challenge 

to remake the city. The housing shortage and the 

need to build new homes offers an opportunity to 

design high-quality housing which strengthens 

the urban fabric and provides an attractive living 

environment. The need for new schools and public 

amenities is an opportunity to locate and design 

these amenities so that they bring a new dynamism 

to neighbourhoods. Expanding public transport and 

reducing the number of cars in the city centre are 

opportunities to create new gateways into the city and 

to use public transport to connect neighbourhoods 

in a powerful gesture. The necessary employment 

policy for Brussels is an opportunity to provide a 

platform to the existing fragile economies, to embed 

them in the urban fabric and give them a new dignity. 

Finally, the need to strengthen the international 

standing of Brussels is an opportunity to build new 

mixed districts that blend into the existing fabric and 

offer high-quality public space. 

The central but almost implicit premise 

of this exhibition is that architecture and planning 

are among the most effective and strategic policy 


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tools with which to find an answer to today’s 

major social problems. To demonstrate this premise, 

we examine a large number of European projects 

that provide examples. Many European cities 

wrestled—or wrestle still—with similar problems 

and phenomena. Population growth, migration, 

the urban exodus, a lack of public space, congestion, 

unemployment and the expansion of the city into 

a regional metropolis are the great challenges of the 

European city as such. Yet many cities in Europe 

have succeeded in recent decades in finding a powerful 

response. The range of examples in this exhibition 

offers Brussels a perspective and a source of inspiration 

for tackling its own problems in its own context 

and its own way. 

It must be admitted that Brussels is 

lagging behind in comparison with other cities. 

In some ways this is surprising, given that the 

city aims to consolidate its role as the capital of 

Europe, its strong international position in 

the network of European cities and its well-known 

cosmopolitan nature. But it is also understandable. 

Brussels is still a very young region, which has 

only recently been able to make decisions about 

its own development. After a century of top-down 

planning processes to modernise the city without any 

attention to the quality of life in its neighbourhoods, 

the Brussels capital region began to address the 

restoration of the urban fabric immediately after 

it was established. Neighbourhood contracts, an 

especially successful regional initiative to promote 

the liveability of the districts through local, ad hoc 

interventions, form the most important example. 

But today Brussels needs to go a step further and 

take the city’s development in hand on a scale commensurate 

with the whole territory. 

11 Exhibition overview

The exhibition seized the opportunity 

offered by the Belgian presidency of the European 

Union to focus on these ambitions and to call not just 

for responsibility but also for daring and courage 

in building tomorrow’s city. These challenges should 

be seen not as separate technical problems, but as 

important metropolitan opportunities that offer the 

point of departure for a bold architectural policy. 

A policy worthy of Brussels. 


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Public 

facilities 

New 

districts 


14

Mobility 

Demography 

Urban 

economy 

15 Exhibition overview

Demography 

How can a city respond 

to housing needs? 

Brussels faces a major demographic challenge. 

In recent years, there has been a continued exodus 

from the city. In particular young families and bettereducated 

people have been moving out of the city, 

looking for affordable housing, preferably with a 

garden. Despite this ongoing exodus, it appears that 

the population in Brussels is no longer falling but has 

begun to rise. Recent research suggests a growth of 

6 percent, which will rise to 8.2 percent over the 

coming ten years, which means between 60,000 and 

82,000 new residents every year. A high birth rate 

and high immigration, particularly among poorer 

sections of the population, are responsible. According 

to these new forecasts, Brussels will need 50,000 new 

homes by 2020, including many social homes. 

In 2007 Brussels had 39,030 social homes, 

representing 8.4 percent of the total housing stock. 

In comparison with other European cities, this figure 

is very low. Paris has 16 percent, London 25 percent 

and Amsterdam as much as 55 percent. In 2009, 

the Brussels government pledged to increase the 

proportion of social housing to 15 percent of the 

total stock by 2020. That means that over the next 

ten years something like an additional 35,000 homes, 

or 3,500 homes annually, must be built. Today the 

average annual production stands at barely 1,500 

social homes. 

So Brussels today has two major, apparently 

paradoxical challenges: on the one hand, it must halt 

the urban exodus by providing quality and affordable 

map 

Housing stock and 

household needs 


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17 Demography

housing for the middle classes; on the other it needs 

to build sufficient social housing to accommodate 

the rising population. These two aspects cannot be 

considered separately but must be tackled together. 

This requires a strategic plan on the scale of the entire 

region. Such a plan will translate the quantitative 

demand into a qualitative policy that strives for a 

sound mix of social and private house building. By 

building qualitative social housing the government 

can give immediate expression to its chosen strategy, 

and thus provide a framework for and a stimulus 

to private house building. 

Various European cities are faced with 

similar problems. A number of cities have succeeded 

in formulating a powerful response and in conducting 

a bold architectural policy. Madrid, for example, 

was confronted with steep population growth. At least 

495,000 people migrated to the Spanish capital to 

find work between 2001 and 2006. Madrid drew up an 

ambitious plan to build 315,000 new homes on unused 

sites on the outskirts of the city, with the result that 

the city’s surface area grew by 50 percent in a decade. 

To stimulate the development of the new districts, 

the city built a large number of high quality social 

homes; the rest was left to the private sector. Foreign 

Office Architects of London succeeded with a very low 

budget project in bringing many important qualities 

to around 90 social homes. By building vertically and 

compactly, space was created for a communal garden 

for residents. The apartment building, Carabanchel, 

contains homes of different sizes and types. Every 

home has a large terrace enclosed by bamboo panels. 

Because residents can open and close these at will, 

the building has a constantly changing aspect. This 

has avoided the traditional image of social housing as 

a repetitive piling up of identical housing units. 

Carabanchel 

Social Housing 

Foreign Office Architects 

(FOA) 

2007, Madrid 


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Mirador 

MVRDV & Blanca Lleo 

Architects 

2005, Madrid 

Borneo and Sporenburg 

West 8 

1997, Amsterdam 

4 dwellings 

Seinwachterstraat 

Rapp+Rapp 

2001, Amsterdam 

The Dutch architects MVRDV also aimed for typological 

innovation in their Mirador housing project. 

The architects literally gave a twist to the traditional 

Madrid housing block six storeys high with a semipublic 

patio in the middle. By tilting the block on its 

side, a tower was built which provides a landmark 

in the neighbourhood, and there is room for public 

space at ground floor level. The residents also have a 

communal terrace at a height of 40 metres. 

Like Brussels, Amsterdam also faces two 

paradoxical challenges: controlling the middle 

class exodus and providing sufficient housing for 

an expanding lower social class. The city centre 

was renovated street by street, and old industrial 

sites made way for ambitious housing projects. The 

peninsulas of the eastern docklands area, from 

which seagoing ships once set sail, have been redeveloped 

as a residential area. Most harbour areas 

were developed according to the Dutch model, with 

large-scale uniform housing projects. However, on the 

Borneo and Sporenburg peninsulas, low-rise housing 

developments were preferred. West 8 designed a 

master plan inspired by the Belgian tradition of 

private house building: one house per plot, built by 

different architects for different principals. The 

Dutch architecture practice Rapp+Rapp here designed 

4 dwellings Seinwachterstraat, four detached introvert 

houses back to back on two long, deep plots. The 

brick walls on the street side are almost completely 

closed. Narrow, dark lanes along the house lead to 

the entrance. But daylight floods the houses: at the 

rear there is a glazed terrace above the patios fully 

executed in glass. These houses demonstrate that even 

families with children can find something to their 

taste in a very dense city centre. 

Copenhagen has also experienced a huge rise 

19 Demography

in population in recent years. Copenhagen has 

become an attractive place in which to live, and 

has profiled itself as a modern, environmentally 

friendly city. The centre became a car-free zone, and 

an extensive safe cycling network was developed 

throughout the city. Today Copenhagen faces the 

challenge of building thousands of new homes. 

Like Madrid, the city has opened up new ground 

and former industrial and harbour areas to develop 

urban centres. In a new district between the old city 

and the airport, architects JDS + BIG designed a new 

and daring project with the appropriate name of 

Mountain Dwellings. Instead of stacking up housing 

units in a single block like match boxes, the architects 

constructed a huge mountainside in concrete 

containing a car park and topped it with a sparse layer 

of homes in terraced form. Every home has a private 

roof garden and a parking space at the same level as 

the unit itself. The project succeeds in combining the 

qualities of individual living outside the city with 

collective living in a densely built-up urban context. 

While Madrid, Copenhagen and Amsterdam 

have the space in which to expand, Paris has to deal 

with the density of its existing urban fabric. The 

construction of social housing played a central role. 

Paris currently has 183,500 social housing units, 

about 16 percent of the total housing stock. As in 

Brussels, there is a concentration of social housing 

in a few parts of the city. Paris has pledged to bring 

this proportion to 20 percent by 2014, and, from the 

conviction that a social mix benefits the quality of 

life of a district, it has also undertaken to spread this 

housing more evenly over the territory. Two very 

different projects show how Paris is achieving this. 

On the Île Seguin, formerly an industrial and harbour 

district home to the Renault factory until 1992, Paris 

Mountain Dwellings 

BIG with JDS 

2008, Copenhagen 

Île Seguin Rives de Seine 

Diener & Diener 

Architekten, Rolinet & 

Associés 

under construction, Paris 


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Eden Bio 

Edouard François 

2008, Paris 

Chassé Park 

Appartementen 

OMA & Xaveer De Geyter 

2001, Breda 

is building a new urban neighbourhood. The Swiss 

architects Diener & Diener designed the master plan 

for a 7,000-square-metre plot in collaboration with 

the landscape architect Günther Vogt. They designed 

a complex of buildings consisting of around three 

hundred housing units, one-third of which are social 

housing, offices, a crèche and shops. Unlike the 

closed blocks so typical of Paris, the enormous block 

is penetrated by passageways. The various intimate 

squares and gardens in the interior connect with 

the public space and are accessible to residents and 

visitors. In the Eden Bio project, architect Edouard 

François used the space in the interior of a block 

in a residential area to create two new streets. On 

the outer side of the streets he built terraced houses, 

while between the two streets an elongated twostorey 

building arose with walkways and stairways 

overrun with plants. The architect thus succeeded 

in increasing density, not by building high-rise 

housing or large blocks, but by erecting small-scale, 

low-rise, sustainable homes in the interior of a block, 

commensurate with the scale of the surroundings. 

While Paris, Madrid and Amsterdam are 

all trying to build a large quantity of social housing, 

Breda proposed to build 13,000 new houses for the 

middle and higher social classes over a ten-year 

period. One of the most important projects in the town 

centre is the redevelopment of the site of a former 

military barracks, Chassé Park. The urban design 

developed by the Rotterdam Office for Metropolitan 

Architecture (OMA) and Xaveer De Geyter Architecten 

of Brussels proposes a campus model, in which 

houses, offices and public facilities lay distributed 

over a thirteen-hectare park. This model considerably 

expanded the town’s public space, while achieving 

as high a density as in the historic centre. Within 

21 Demography

the campus Xaveer De Geyter constructed a housing 

project with five towers, thirteen storeys high. The 

towers are placed so as to enjoy a maximum of light 

and views and are sited above a car park, which 

links the buildings in a ring. Within this ring there 

is a sunken communal inner garden onto which the 

entrance halls of the towers give. 

Postwar Rotterdam, in contrast, opted 

firmly for modernism and high-rise building. Even 

today, Rotterdam is building new urban centres in the 

former harbour district that make spectacular use 

of tall buildings. For the Kop van Zuid, an old harbour 

site which has been redeveloped as a new urban 

district, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture 

(OMA) designed the De Rotterdam project as a vertical 

town. The three interconnected 150-metre high 

towers accommodate office space, apartments, hotels, 

conference rooms, shops, restaurants, cafés and 

public amenities. Because of the mixed use, life in 

the towers is never still. A public hall on the lower 

ground floor forms the living crossroads where 

the diverse users of De Rotterdam pass and come 

into contact with each other. On Wijnhaven Island, 

architects KCAP have added a new icon to the 

impressive skyline. The Red Apple, a bright red 

building with slender towers and a daringly canted 

volume, is home to offices and around 200 homes, 

which enjoy a magnificent view over the city and the 

harbour. Along the street there are shops, restaurants 

and cafés, and the large glazed lobby is also a lively 

urban meeting place for the diverse users. 

Like Breda and Amsterdam, Basel saw a 

massive exodus at the end of the last century. Basel 

has invested heavily in making the city a better place 

to live, not least by sending an urban motorway 

through an underground tunnel, and has plans for 

De Rotterdam 

OMA 

under construction, 

Rotterdam 

The Red Apple 

KCAP Architects & 

Planners 

2009, Rotterdam 


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VoltaMitte 

Christ & Gantenbein 

architects 

2010, Basel 

Wohnhaus Schwarzpark 

Miller & Maranta 

2004, Basel 

building 5,000 new homes for the middle class. 

Above the new tunnel for through-traffic, there was 

space in which to increase the density of the urban 

fabric with new house building projects. One of 

these projects is VoltaMitte from architects Christ & 

Gantenbein, which closes off one of the open sides of 

a block. Here again, the architects wanted to develop 

an alternative to the typical uniformity of collective 

housing projects. Every apartment has its own shape 

and character, which results in a spectacular rear 

façade that can be seen from the communal garden in 

the inner courtyard. A second remarkable project 

in Basel is the housing development designed by Swiss 

architects Miller & Maranta in the Schwarzpark, 

an urban park in the south of Basel. The homes in 

the park offer an alternative to secluded living on the 

outskirts. They combine the quality of rural living 

with the advantages of living in the city and make a 

modest contribution to halting the urban exodus. 

23 Demography

Public facilities 

How can a public building 

transform the city? 

Historically speaking, cities are economic crossroads 

that have always attracted new activities and people. 

But apart from the economic opportunities, the 

immediate proximity and accessibility of amenities 

and services of all kinds is probably the most important 

feature of the European city. Schools and universities, 

concert halls and theatres, museums, conference 

centres, libraries, swimming pools, public parks 

and squares, public and social services all make 

cities inhabitable environments. Today Brussels is 

considering the construction of a number of important 

metropolitan facilities, such as a new football stadium, 

a shopping centre, a conference centre or a new concert 

hall. As well as these large-scale amenities, Brussels 

has an urgent need for around seventy new schools, not 

least because of the expanding young population. The 

sports infrastructure also urgently requires expansion. 

All these essential functions must find a 

place in the urban fabric. This is a huge challenge, 

but at the same time it offers an incredible 

opportunity to improve the quality of life in Brussels 

neighbourhoods. Public amenities should not be 

designed as isolated objects that fulfil a well-defined 

programme. With carefully thought-through 

positioning and high-quality architecture, they can 

play a role as the vehicle for change in a district. 

They are a driving force for social cohesion in urban 

development. The total package of metropolitan 

and more small-scale facilities make it possible to 

strengthen the successful practice of neighbourhood 

map 

Facilities and enhanced 

development area 


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25 Public facilities

contracts within a strategy commensurate with the 

Brussels conurbation. 

In recent years European cities have made a 

massive investment in new public amenities of high 

architectural quality. The examples presented here 

all strengthen the urban fabric in their own way, 

defining new public spaces and giving a new face to 

the surroundings. 

In Milan Grafton Architects have succeeded 

in intelligently establishing a programme in the 

vulnerable urban fabric that initially seemed too large 

for the surroundings: an auditorium and offices for the 

Università Luigi Bocconi. It is a sturdy-looking but very 

accessible building. The public space runs beneath the 

whole building, giving access to the campus beyond. 

The building creates for the first time a relationship 

between the university and the surrounding residential 

district. What is remarkable is that this is a 

private university. The project demonstrates that 

even privately built projects are aware of the need to 

introduce high-quality architecture to strengthen the 

urban fabric. 

A similar project is the Cinéma Sauvenière in 

Liège, designed by the Brussels architects V+. On a 

small plot, the design succeeded in freeing an internal 

court, which accommodates a café and terrace, function 

ing as an extension of the public space of the 

street. But the most remarkable aspect of this cinema 

is that it stands in the heart of the city, and was not, as 

is usual today, located like an isolated shoebox of no 

distinction on the edge of the town. It is these huge 

complexes which have supplanted the traditional citycentre 

cinemas. This even though a cinema receives 

more visitors than other cultural amenities and is 

better placed than any other to stimulate activity in 

the centre. 

Università Bocconi 

Grafton Architects 

2008, Milan 

Cinéma Sauvenière 

Bureau vers plus de bienêtre 

(V+) 

2008, Liège 


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UFO 

Xaveer De Geyter 

architecten & Stéphane 

Beel architecten 

2007, Gent 

Shopping center K 

Robbrecht en Daem 

architecten 

2010, Kortrijk 

The new Universiteitsforum (UFO) in Ghent, 

designed by the Belgian architects Xaveer De Geyter 

and Stéphane Beel, is a building that not only fits 

into the urban fabric but actually repairs the damage. 

Large-scale university buildings had inflicted deep 

wounds on the city in recent decades. The UFO 

repairs the damaged frontage along an important 

main road in Ghent and also creates two new public 

squares on either side of the building. The building 

itself, which includes a large auditorium, is designed 

as a vast public lobby. The UFO and the two quads 

are important meeting places and provide a new 

nucleus to the university. These are places where two 

thousand students will pass every day. 

More and more metropolitan institutions, 

such as universities and cinemas, have moved to the 

outskirts of the city in recent years; they need more 

and more room, and are difficult to establish in the 

delicate urban fabric. The UFO, the Università Bocconi 

and the Cinéma Sauvenière all demonstrate, however, 

that such facilities can, on the contrary, act as a 

driving force to breathe new life into a neighbourhood. 

Large shopping centres and malls have also moved 

out to the periphery and compete with the traditional 

shopping streets in the city centre. In Kortrijk, the 

architecture practice Robbrecht & Daem has built 

one of the few city-centre shopping centres in the 

country. Shopping center K in Kortrijk has succeeded 

in integrating seamlessly into the existing fabric. As 

well as a shopping mall, the complex includes housing 

and a large car park, which relieves the pressure of 

traffic in the centre. In the centre of the shopping 

mall there is a gigantic atrium, which acts as a new 

covered public square. Instead of driving out the 

smaller shops in the centre, K in Kortrijk strengthens 

the town as a shopping destination. Kortrijk, which 


was the first Belgian town to create a pedestrianised 

shopping street, thus continues its tradition as a town 

for shopping. 

In Ghent, on the site of a former cloister and 

hospital, architect Jan De Vylder has built dance 

studios for Les Ballets C de la B and LOD. By situating 

two volumes, which mirror one another, in an 

intelligent manner on an unusual plot, a part of the 

frontage on the street side was closed again. As in 

the case of the UFO, the architect made room for a 

public square between the two buildings, which gives 

access to the interior of the Bijlokesite. This has been 

redeveloped into a new centre of cultural activities in 

the city, which now hosts the new city museum, the 

STAM, and the academy. 

While the dance studios and UFO in Ghent, the 

cinema in Liège and the Università Bocconi in Milan 

are all embedded in the urban fabric of a city, architect 

Jean Nouvel’s Les Bains des Docks is one of the first 

public amenities to be built in a new part of the town 

which is still under development. The swimming pool 

complex stands in the old harbour of Le Havre, which 

is being transformed into a new quarter with water 

sports activities, tourist attractions, shops, homes and 

offices. Nouvel has respected the existing industrial 

landscape, imitating the aesthetic of the harbour 

warehouses in the area, which are slowly but surely 

acquiring new uses. The result is a low, rectangular 

volume built in dark, sturdy materials, which conceals 

a spectacular, almost fairy-tale maze of swimming 

pools and relaxation areas. 

The elementary school Leutschenbach designed 

by Christian Kerez is also the first contribution 

towards the development of a completely new 

urban district on a formerly industrial site in Zürich. 

Interestingly, the architect’s strategy gives a school 

Les Ballets C de la B – LOD 

architecten de vylder vinck 

taillieu 

2008, Gent 

Les Bains des Docks 

Ateliers Jean Nouvel 

2008, Le Havre 

Elementary school 

Leutschenbach 

Christian Kerez 

2009, Zürich 


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Casa da Musica 

OMA 

2005, Porto 

MAXXI : National Museum 

of XXI century Arts 

Zaha Hadid Architects 

2010, Roma 

building an entirely new form. Generally schools 

are designed as a conjunction of different activities. 

Classrooms, offices, canteen, a music hall and a gym 

form a campus around a playground. Kerez opted to 

pile up the various functions in a single building, with 

the gym on the top floor. By building upwards, the 

ground floor left free a spacious area for the creation of 

an urban park, which can be used by school children 

and future local residents. 

The idea of restoring public space to the city 

and thus bringing a new dynamic to a neighbourhood 

is also reflected in Casa da Musica. Architect Rem 

Koolhaas of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture 

(OMA) positioned the building volume as an 

autonomous object in the middle of an undulating 

square. The promenade around the building is 

continued inside, in a public way leading up to 

the roof. Here there is a restaurant and a bar. OMA 

has thus succeeded in giving a new meaning to 

the traditional concert hall. It is not a sacred space 

that people only visit to watch a performance, but a 

building which is accessible to everyone and which is 

a part of the public space within the city. 

Large-scale public structures such as a 

university, a concert hall or a museum can redefine 

a whole district. Such attractions can become new 

centres in the city. This has been the impact of the 

new museum of contemporary art in Rome. Like the 

Casa da Musica, the MAXXI is a spectacular building 

that attracts visitors, not just from all over the city but 

from the whole world. Many cities have striven for the 

“Bilbao effect,” where the Guggenheim museum lifted 

the city from nothing to a tourist destination. Unlike 

the Guggenheim, the MAXXI, designed by the British- 

Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid, displays a great sensitivity 

to the surrounding urban fabric. The building, with 


its futuristic maze of curved and sloping walls, craters 

and ravines, subtle differences in levels, footbridges 

and dizzying flights of stairs, is of course spectacular, 

but it is not obtrusive in the street scene. It is carefully 

integrated into the fabric of the former army barracks 

in the Flaminio district. In this way, it gives a new 

meaning to an unused area of the city. 

The project for a school of architecture in the 

former harbour island and industrial district Île de 

Nantes is another reflection on how to make a building 

public right up to the roof. Architects Lacaton & Vassal 

built a solid basic structure rather like a multistorey 

car park, connected to the public space at ground floor 

level by a long sloping path. Within the three-level 

structure smaller, light and adaptable structures have 

been added beside and above each other. In these are 

sited the school’s own facilities: workshops, lecture 

rooms, a library, exhibition spaces and a cafeteria. 

Between the different rooms there are interesting 

open spaces. The entire surface of the roof is a public 

space that looks out over the Loire and the old and 

new towns. Like the school in Zürich or Les Bains des 

Docks in Le Havre, the architecture school should 

bring life to a new urban district. 

The idea that public amenities have the 

capacity to bring a new dynamic to a neighbourhood 

is most clearly expressed in parks. Parks are uniquely 

placed to improve the liveability of a district. The 

Spoor Noord park in Antwerp, for example, has 

succeeded in improving the quality of life in the 

poor and densely built-up working-class areas. The 

park has been laid out in a former shunting yard to 

the north of the city. The Italian architects Secchi & 

Vigano designed the park not as a green space to walk 

in and admire, as was customary for 19th-century 

urban parks, but as a park which accommodates a host 

School of architecture 

Anne Lacaton & Jean 

Philippe Vassal 

2008, Nantes 

Spoor Noord 

Studio Associato Bernardo 

Secchi Paola Viganò 

2009, Antwerpen 


30

A8ernA 

NL Architects 

2006, Zaanstad 

of facilities, such as sports grounds and playgrounds, 

a multipurpose hall, a skating bowl beneath a disused 

railway viaduct, barbecues and picnic areas for local 

people, ponds and fountains in which children can 

play. Spoor Noord is a sort of machine for engaging 

the public. The same architects are currently drawing 

up the master plan for a similar area in Brussels: 

Schaerbeek-Formation. 

In Zaandstad on the periphery of Amsterdam, 

what had been an interruption in the town has 

acquired a new central function. A viaduct for road 

traffic cut the little town in two. For thirty years, a 

cramped car park under the viaduct’s columns was 

a blind spot in the middle of the town. Beneath the 

viaduct NL Architects have built a new urban square: 

A8ernA. Just as in the Spoor Noord park, the long 

strip beneath the viaduct offers an extensive leisure 

programme: a skating bowl, sports grounds, a pond 

with boats, shops, playgrounds and a little park. With 

very few resources, the architects have seized the 

opportunity to turn a gloomy place, which was a thorn 

in the side of residents for years, into a new focus for 

the town. 


Urban economy 

How can architecture stimulate 

local economic activity? 

Although Brussels is one of the wealthiest and 

most productive cities in Europe, the region 

suffers from sky-high unemployment rates. With 

unemployment standing at 19.5 percent, principally 

among young people, Brussels is far above the 

European average. This paradox is due to the fact that 

wealth in Brussels is primarily produced in the service 

sector, which represents 90 percent of all economic 

activity in the city. More than half of employees in 

the service sector (53 percent), mainly the better 

educated, are commuters from outside the region. 

There is thus an enormous discrepancy between the 

existing economic activity and the qualifications or 

educational levels of the residents. 

The fight against unemployment demands 

a powerful approach, not only in terms of education 

and training, but also in terms of creating new 

jobs. Architecture can provide a solution here, 

through strengthening informal activities locally, 

creating new economies and building new training 

centres for young people or business centres for 

new entrepreneurs. A number of European examples 

demonstrate how architecture can be put to work 

to make the urban fabric the background to a new 

economic dynamism. 

One of the tried and tested ways of 

strengthening creative and craft industries in 

the city is the establishment of business centres 

with offices, workplaces and workshops for young 

companies. Since the 1970s, Paris has conducted a 

map 

Unemployment rate 

in 2007 


32

33 Urban economy

policy of setting up “hôtels industriels” throughout 

the city. These hotels offer a temporary place for 

new economic activities, in the hope that they will 

grow and move on to a more suitable site. Architect 

Dominique Perrault designed such a business centre 

on the outskirts of the city, on a difficult piece of 

ground squeezed between the heavy infrastructure 

of the Paris ring road, the quays of the Seine and 

a gigantic area of railway tracks. To fit into this 

difficult inner city location, Perrault designed a 

powerful building on the scale of the site: a large 

glazed box nine storeys high. Just as in a real hotel, 

the Hôtel Industriel Berlier sees a constant coming 

and going of businesses and people. The activities 

are visible behind the glass façade and the building 

is consequently always changing in appearance. 

Brussels has also established a number of start-up 

business centres in recent years, but while these were 

mostly created in existing or older buildings, the 

Hôtel Industriel Berlier succeeds in breathing new life 

into a difficult area of the city and in bringing a new 

dynamic to the surroundings. 

Training is also essential to stimulating a 

new urban economy. A youth and culture programme 

in Zürich makes a very small-scale but effective 

contribution to the training of young people. 

Next to the youth centre, in an area frequented by 

many young people, phalt Architekten have built a 

metal workshop. The workplace is not tucked away 

in a backstreet shed, but stands in the centre of a 

public space that can be caught up in its activities. 

This training blends into the cityscape, easily 

accessible to young people. 

Apart from developing new economies, 

architecture plays a strong role in giving existing, 

often informal activities a new status. This is the 

Hôtel Industriel Berlier 

Dominique Perrault 

Architecture 

2005, Paris 

Metal workshop 

Dynamo 

phalt Architekten 

2008, Zürich 


34

Santa Caterina Market 

Enric Miralles & 

Benedetta Tagliabue – 

EMBT 

2005, Barcelona 

Im Viadukt 

EM2N 

2010, Zürich 

De Meelfabriek 

Atelier Peter Zumthor & 

Partner 

study phase, Leiden 

case in the project for the Santa Caterina market in 

Barcelona. Architects Enric Miralles and Benedetta 

Tagliabue of EMBT built a covered market hall, with a 

colourful undulating roof consisting of thousands 

of ceramic tiles. The renovation of the marketplace 

was an opportunity to launch a much more widereaching 

urban development project, with new social 

housing. Building the market hall created a central 

public space in Barcelona, which gives a place to 

an activity that normally falls between the folds of 

the urban fabric. 

In Zürich, EM2N completed a project 

Im Viadukt that combined a marketplace with 

the stimulation of new creative industries. The 

architects transformed a 500-metre-long railway 

viaduct, which had formed an insuperable barrier 

in the city, into a connecting element with a 

central role for economic activity. Under the arches 

of the viaduct the architects erected shops, cafés 

and restaurants, along with a large number of 

workshops and workplaces for creative and craft 

industries. In between the two railway lines a new 

market hall takes place, the first covered market in 

Zürich. Market activities once again fulfil a prominent 

urban function. 

The way in which urban development can go 

hand in hand with strengthening the local economy 

is also illustrated by the new use given to a former 

flourmill standing on the canal banks in Leiden. 

The flourmill lies in the former industrial ring around 

the centre, which is now finding a new use as a green 

zone. Peter Zumthor’s design proposes a blend of 

functions: housing, student accommodation, a 

hotel, workshops, a training institute, workshops 

and offices. The central theme of the Meelfabriek 

is the boosting of an already well-represented 

35 Urban economy

communications industry in the city. Publishers, 

photographers, advertising bureaus and filmmakers 

acquire a central location in the city. So there 

is contact and exchange between the different 

businesses, and the city can present itself as the 

regional centre of the creative economy. 


36

37

Mobility 

How can transportation infrastructure 

make a more cohesive city? 

For many years mobility was regarded as a purely 

technical issue in Europe: a matter of building roads 

and motorways, viaducts, traffic junctions and 

tunnels, or of providing adequate public transport. 

This technical approach to mobility reached its high 

tide in Brussels in the 1960s and 1970s. Bringing 

motorways right into the historic centre made 

Brussels quite literally the “crossroads of Europe,” 

as contemporary advertisements put it. Easy 

car access into the heart of the city was meant to 

guarantee the future of Brussels as a European centre, 

or even as the capital of Europe. The fact that this 

also had damaging consequences for the city as a 

place to live was a disregarded argument. 

Brussels today still has two different 

planning mechanisms: a regional development plan 

and a mobility plan. These two policy instruments 

are insufficiently articulated. In addition, the 

administrative divisions of the Brussels metropolitan 

area make a coherent mobility policy that addresses 

real challenges impossible. Yet examples from 

elsewhere in Europe demonstrate that mobility today 

is both more than ever a matter of architecture and 

urban development, and the reverse: that urban 

development is driven by mobility. 

In September 2010 the Brussels government 

approved the new Iris 2 mobility plan. The plan 

sets out various measures to bring a halt to the 

Brussels traffic congestion. Car traffic in Brussels 

should decline 20 percent by 2018, and public 

map 

City and networks 


38

39 Mobility

transport will be considerably expanded, with new 

tram lines and a new metro line to Schaerbeek. The 

ambitious plan is a unique opportunity to redevelop 

many public spaces, both underground and above 

ground. Mobility sites, such a metro stops, railway 

stations, car parks and bus and tram stops are among 

the most visited locations in a city. In Brussels some 

350,000 commuters use these places every day. 

They are contemporary city gates and for many 

commuters the only contact they have with Brussels. 

For residents too, the mobility infrastructure is a part 

of daily life. Mobility does not only make the city 

and its amenities accessible but is also an important 

backbone which links and unites the different parts 

of the city. The quality of mobility sites contributes 

greatly to a city’s image. So the quality of these 

transport hubs is important. A number of European 

examples demonstrate how their quality can reflect 

upon the city as a whole. Furthermore, these 

places are also uniquely placed to give a new impetus 

to the development of the urban fabric. 

Hardbrücke Station in Zürich clearly illustrates 

the way in which architecture can determine the 

experience a station offers. The railway station stands 

on the edge of the former industrial area Zürich West, 

which is currently under development to provide a 

new urban district. The original station was hidden 

in a tangle of infrastructure beneath a 1.5-kilometrelong 

road viaduct. The EM2N architects created a new 

and smooth link between the railway station and the 

bus stops on the viaduct. They also installed clear and 

striking signs which give the station an identity and 

an immediate readability. This makes the station an 

urban orientation point and gives new meaning to 

the hard infrastructure. The station and the viaduct 

have been transformed from an insuperable break 

Hardbrücke Station 

EM2N 

2007, Zürich 


40

Car Park & Terminus 

Hoenheim-Nord 

Zaha Hadid Architects 

2001, Hoenheim 

in the urban fabric to a new hub which joins the two 

halves of the city. 

Like the Hardbrücke Station, Hoenheim-Nord 

in Strasburg is also a gateway to the city, this time not 

for travellers by train but for drivers. To keep traffic 

out of the city, Strasbourg has developed an extensive 

tram network. Commuters can leave their cars at 

specially designed connection points around the city 

and continue their journey by tram. Often these parkand-ride 

areas are drab and unappealing car parks. 

However, Strasburg opted to give these connection 

places the grandeur of a contemporary city gate. The 

Iranian-British architect Zaha Hadid designed a car 

park for 800 vehicles as an artificial landscape of 

concrete, steel and artificial light which directs the 

visitor towards the station under a concrete awning. 

The parked vehicles, arranged on the extensive car 

park along the curves of a colourful magnetic field, 

become part of the landscape. In fact, just driving into 

Strasbourg, parking and taking a connecting tram has 

become an attraction. 

As the Strasbourg example demonstrates, 

reducing traffic can only succeed when an alternative 

is offered in the shape of an efficient public transport 

network. Brussels has also proposed to expand the 

provision of public transport in the Iris 2 mobility 

plan. This presents an opportunity. The expansion 

of the tram and metro network and the creation of 

the Regional Express network can be the starting 

point for redefining the whole territory. The mobility 

network can thus develop into the backbone of an 

urban project commensurate with the region and its 

sphere of influence. A number of European cities, 

such as Bordeaux, Bilbao and Porto, have shown that 

a mobility project can give the whole of a city a new 

identity. Mobility brings coherence to a city, unifies a 

41 Mobility

city into a single whole. Residents rediscover a pride 

in their city and have the feeling that they are part of a 

shared urban society. 

Bordeaux had long intended to build a metro 

system. After many years of public and political 

debate, it was decided to install above-ground 

tram lines. With the budget that was available for a 

metro system, a tram network could be created as a 

comprehensive urban development project. To reduce 

car traffic, the tramway was given a dedicated track 

taking precedence over all traffic. The route of the 

lines was also chosen with care. The tram was seen 

as a way of rejoining the vulnerable outer districts 

to the city centre. Large existing and planned urban 

projects were also drawn into a transport system 

by the tram project and made accessible. The most 

spectacular aspect of the tram project is the fact that 

the careful design of the tram—the tram itself, the 

station furnishings, and the landscape along the 

route—has given a new identity to the city. Trees have 

been planted along the tram route, and public spaces 

have been redesigned. Where the tram runs through 

the streets, corridors open up neighbourhoods again. 

About 20,000 new homes have been spontaneously 

built along the tram route. The city has decided 

that, along with the extension of the tram network, 

a further 50,000 homes will be planned. 

In Bilbao too, the introduction of a public 

transport network—in this case a metro—was seized 

as an opportunity to bring a new coherence to the 

diversity of urban neighbourhoods. The British 

architect Norman Foster was given the unique task 

of designing the entirety of the metro line. All the 

metro stops were designed as vast tube-shaped halls. 

The same materials and shapes recur in the passages, 

stairways and lifts. The underground programme also 

Tramway 

Urban design tramway 

Brochet, Lajus, Pueyo 

architectes 

Agence Signes, paysagistes 

Elizabeth de Portzamparc 

mobilier urbain 

Bordeaux 

Metro 

Foster + Partners 

1995, Bilbao 


42

Metro 

Edouardo Souto de Moura 

2002, Porto 

Souterrain tram 

tunnel 

Office for Metropolitan 

Architecture (OMA) 

2004, The Hague 

has a powerful presence above ground. At the entrance 

to the metro stations, glazed tubes like hoses emerge 

from the ground. These “fosteritos” have become a 

new icon in the city. 

While the underground metro stations in 

Brussels are often dark and cheerless spaces, we can 

see in both Bilbao and Porto that there are many 

opportunities below ground. Particularly in Porto’s 

city centre, the metro runs underground for much of 

the time. Unlike in Bilbao, the stations were designed 

by several architects, all under the supervision of 

the Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura. 

He established a number of guidelines which the 

architects had to follow. These ensured that the deeplying 

metro stations were pleasant public spaces and 

that the transition from the street to the underground 

area, and thus the surrounding public space, received 

particular attention. 

These connections between the street and 

the underground were given revolutionary form in 

the Souterrain tram tunnel in The Hague. The Office 

for Metropolitan Architecture built an underground 

street 1,250 metres long and with 500 parking 

spaces on two levels. At each end of this enormous 

construction there stands a tram station at level –3. 

Taking the tram line underground and combining 

it with a large car park meant that the shopping 

street above could be made a car-free zone. The 

three underground levels are linked with the surface 

shopping centres over the entire length of the street. 

The Souterrain is no gloomy metro station or car 

park, but a dynamic and safe public space in which 

daylight penetrates down to the lowest level. It is an 

urban space full of movement and activity, which is 

experienced as a vast urban lobby. 

Like the previous cities, Lyon translates its 

43 Mobility

policy decision to reduce urban traffic into some very 

practical measures. The city has developed a parking 

plan with a number of new multistorey car parks. 

To ensure the success of these interventions, Lyon 

did not opt to simply pile the cars up in dark boxes. 

The car park beneath the Théâtre des Célestins so 

called Parking des Célestins was designed by architect 

Michel Targe and the artist Daniel Buren. They took 

their inspiration from the famous sixteenth-century 

Pozzo di San Pietro in Orvieto. Just like this well, the 

car park is designed as a double helix around a central 

void. Light openings in the helix look out over the 

central well and bring daylight into the car park. At 

the bottom of the well, Daniel Buren placed a mirror 

which rotates on its axis day and night. On the square 

in front of the theatre stands a periscope that looks 

onto the bottomless bottom of the well. Thanks to this 

theatrical, illusory effect, parking the car becomes an 

experience in itself. 

Despite the arrival of alternative forms of 

transport, the car will never be completely banned 

from the city. Certainly in a city like Brussels, which 

has been made to measure for cars, motorways will 

remain an undeniable part of the city. Often the road 

infrastructure forms barriers that cut the urban 

fabric in two. A project in Turnhout from the Brussels 

architecture practice Office Kersten Geers David 

Van Severen demonstrates that these barriers do not 

have to be insurmountable and can even offer an 

opportunity for new urban development. Turnhout 

wanted to take the southern part of its ring road 

into an underground tunnel, so that through-traffic 

would be faster and a safe crossing could be created 

between the centre and a park on the outer side of the 

ring. However, the architects proposed to construct 

an embankment over the road. This embankment 

Parking des Célestins 

Michel Targe + Daniel 

Buren 

1995, Lyon 

Central Park Turnhout 

Office Kersten Geers David 

Van Severen & Technum 

ongoing, Turnhout 


44

Trinitat Park 

Enric Battle & Joan Roig 

Architects 

1993, Barcelona 

forms a powerful architectural feature, being at once 

a crossing into the park and a clear boundary to the 

town. What was seen as an infrastructure project has 

been reformulated by the architects into a project 

for urban renewal: the Central Park is attached to the 

town, and receives a new frontage in the shape of five 

tower blocks along the embankment. 

As in Brussels, the large-scale introduction 

of motorways in the 1960s made a severe impact on 

Barcelona. Road infrastructure was then regarded 

as a purely technical matter, without considering 

its effect on the urban fabric. In the last two decades 

Barcelona has systematically converted the breaks in 

the city into major urban public spaces which connect 

neighbourhoods with each other. Space-hungry traffic 

junctions and intersections are being redeveloped 

to integrate them better into the urban fabric. In the 

north of the city, architects Enric Battle & Joan Roig 

have converted the spare space inside a gigantic traffic 

interchange into a neighbourhood park. The Trinitat 

park is connected to the surrounding districts by 

tunnels, bridges and a metro station. The architecture 

of the landscape reflects the curved lines of the traffic 

intersection and screens the park from the bustle of 

the motorway. Thanks to the construction of the park, 

the infrastructure has been transformed from a blind 

spot in the city to a lively central place. 

45 Mobility

New districts 

Which form will we give 

the city of tomorrow? 

In the past fifty years, the European city has been 

transformed from an industrial city to one based 

on a service economy. Brussels is no exception. 

Nineteenth and twentieth-century industries have left 

a huge mark on the city. Large parts of the territory, 

such as Schaerbeek-Formation, Thurn and Taxis, 

the Brussels harbour area and the canal zone are 

relics of an industrial era that are still waiting for a 

new purpose. Just as the industrial economy largely 

determined the appearance of the city, so too a new 

type of city has emerged with the service economy. 

The transformation of Brussels into a service city has 

so far resulted in the rise of property development, 

which has provided the city with the necessary square 

metres of office space. The most visible examples 

of this are the office zones around the Nord and Midi 

stations, the European district around Schuman 

station and the Rue de la Loi, and the CAE project 

at the Botanique. These are monofunctional office 

districts with poor public space, where there is 

no life outside office hours. These one-sided property 

developments reflect an old ambition for Brussels. 

Since the 1950s Brussels has been fostering an image 

of itself as a central hub, the logistical crossroads or 

the administrative centre of Europe. That the price 

for this ambition might be high was illustrated by the 

ease with which whole residential districts had to give 

way to office areas. Brussels is still carrying the scars. 

Now that Brussels has assumed its role 

as European capital, the city is faced by a major 

map 

Priority development areas 


46

47 New districts

challenge. On the one hand, Brussels needs to 

strengthen its international position still further; 

on the other, it must organise its transformation into 

a service city with as much quality as possible and 

bring it into harmony with its roles as a city in which 

to live or to visit. This is something that Brussels, with 

its young government, has so far found it difficult to 

come to grips with. While other cities in Europe have 

been at work for some decades at transforming the 

urban fabric, Brussels is hobbling along behind. A 

number of examples illustrate how various European 

cities have taken the transformations firmly in hand. 

The old industrial fabric is used as an opportunity to 

build a new city with distinguished public space and a 

balance between housing, offices, work places, shops, 

culture and leisure. 

When port activities ceased on the Île de 

Nantes in the late 1980s, a gigantic land area became 

available: a 350-hectare plot which is almost eight 

times the size of Thurn & Taxis in Brussels and 

almost twice the size of Schaerbeek-Formation. The 

government gave the impetus to the redevelopment 

of the island in the Loire by building the Palais de 

Justice, designed by Jean Nouvel in 2000. Architects 

Alexandre Chemetoff and Jean-Louis Berthomieu 

were appointed to direct the development of the area 

over a ten-year period. They did not design a detailed 

master plan but rather set out a number of guidelines 

to get the development, which is largely dependent on 

private sector initiatives, onto the right foot. This led 

to an open project that can be constantly adapted to 

the new initiatives and opportunities which may arise 

in the future. 

Tirana, the capital city of Albania, is the odd 

one out among European examples. The city still bears 

strong traces of the former Communist government. 

Île de Nantes 

l’Atelier de l’île de Nantes – 

Alexandre Chemetoff 

2011 (phase 1), Nantes 


48

TID Tower / 

Skanderbeg Square 

51N4E 

under construction, Tiranë 

Hafencity 

KCAP/ASTOC 

under construction, 

Hamburg 

While the centre of the city was planned in a very 

rigid and monumental fashion, Tirana has experienced 

uncontrolled expansion in recent years. 

To bring back order to the chaotic city, French 

architecture practice Architecture Studio designed 

a master plan in which a series of ten towers restores 

coherence to the urban fabric. The Belgian architects 

51N4E constructed the first tower close to the city’s 

central square. Thanks to its unusual shape—a 

rectangle that gradually converts into an ellipse— 

TID tower is a symbol of transformation in the city. 

At the ground floor of the tower there is a public 

gallery in which a half-dome is cut away, sheltering 

the tomb of Sülejman Pacha, the founder of Tirana. 

Skanderbeg square is being renewed as well by 51N4E 

and relaid in the form of a pyramid. In the centre of 

the square, at the top of the pyramid, visitors look out 

over the communist architecture of the city, so that 

its oppressive monumentality is undone. This subtle 

intervention acknowledges Albania’s past, while 

giving the city a new perspective. 

Like Nantes, Hamburg had the opportunity 

to redevelop an old harbour area into a new modern 

district. This gigantic project is focused on the 

development of a compact, sustainable and vibrant 

city with mixed functions. After a century of largescale 

port activities, Hamburg can at last redefine its 

relationship with the Elbe. Traditional planning tools 

are inadequate to the successful completion of such 

a large-scale project. Hafencity is a long-term project. 

After ten years of building, only half of the area is 

complete. KCAP and ASTOC, which designed the 

master plan, have therefore opted for a combination 

of set principles and operational rules that can be 

constantly adapted to each other and to the changing 

economic circumstances. The carefully designed 

49 New districts

public space in the first phase, designed by Enric 

Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue (EMBT), gives unity 

to the new city district and draws the historic centre 

to the water. Living, working, shopping, culture, 

leisure and nightlife all come together here. The 

squares and streets are the stage for vibrant activity, 

day and night. 

London, too, is exploiting the potential of the 

old industrial sites along the Thames to develop new 

urban districts. The More London office of the Thames 

area has been erected on the south bank. The city 

authorities gave the green light with the construction 

of the new City Hall, while Foster & Partners were 

commissioned to design the master plan. Despite the 

many commonplace office buildings that the project 

developers have built within the master plan, the 

architects have succeeded in developing outstanding 

public spaces in collaboration with Townshend 

Landscape Architects. Next to the City Hall there is 

a central square containing the “scoop,” an open-air 

amphitheatre which hosts all kinds of cultural events. 

The office area creates a clear facade to a tourist walk 

along the riverbank. 

Like Brussels and London, Basel is a city 

with big international ambitions. The city stands at 

the point where Switzerland, France and Germany 

meet and is accordingly an ideal location for 

many businesses, including the pharmaceuticals 

manufacturer Novartis, which has opted to move its 

headquarters, research laboratories and production 

centres to a former industrial site along the Rhine, 

where it commissioned architect Vittorio Lampugnani 

to design the master plan. An interesting feature 

of this project is that the Campus Novartis had 

neither the ambition nor indeed the potential to be 

a new neighbourood. In the first place it is a private 

More London 

Foster + Partners architects 

Townshend 

landscape architects 

2003, London 

Campus Novartis 

Vittorio Magnago 

Lampugnani 

2008, Basel 


50

Forum 3 

Diener & Diener 

Architekten 

2005, Basel 

Îlot St. Maurice 

Xaveer De Geyter 

Architecten 

2005, Lille 

company area, closed to the public. Nevertheless, 

it does give something back to the city. The buildings 

stand back from the water, so that along the banks 

of the Rhine there is now a public promenade. The 

various buildings on the campus will be designed 

by internationally famous architects such as 

Frank Gehry, Rafael Moneo or SANAA. The first 

buildings have already been completed; the architects 

Diener & Diener, Helmut Federle and Gerold Wiederin 

designed a colourful office building, Forum 3, that 

marks the entrance to the campus. 

In contrast to Brussels, Lille grasped the 

arrival of the HST train in 1994 as an opportunity to 

put itself on the map as a new metropolis. A new 

town arose around the HST station. After Euralille 1, 

Euralille 2 is now under construction and studies 

are under way for Euralille 3. The result is a city with 

a dual nature: on the one side the old centre, on the 

other a hypermodern town with high-rise buildings 

and sparkling glass facades. On the outskirts of 

Euralille, the Brussels architect Xaveer De Geyter 

built the new îlot St. Maurice, making a bridge for the 

first time between old and new towns. Xaveer 

De Geyter designed a series of buildings that follow 

each other in parallel bands. The buildings house 

homes, workshops, offices and shops. The undulating 

terrain was used to provide access at different 

levels, so that all the shops, homes and car parks are 

immediately accessible. This very dense occupation 

is offset by a network of public spaces between the 

buildings, and with roof terraces and hanging gardens 

which are accessible to all and which overlook the 

towers of Euralille. 

Like Nantes, London and Hamburg, Zürich 

is a formerly industrial city that has seized the 

opportunity to absorb its abandoned areas into the 

51 New districts

city. However, in the case of the Zürich West industrial 

district, the city took a firm decision not to build 

a totally new urban fabric, but rather to retain the 

industrial character of the area as much as possible. 

Industrial sheds and factories are finding a new 

lease on life as housing, offices, workshops and work 

places. Existing infrastructure is reused and acquires 

a new meaning. Zürich West succeeds in another 

way in forming a bridge with the past: the new city 

sets out to stimulate craft and creative industries. 

The Zürich city-planning department has developed 

a new, collaborative planning methodology which 

closely involved more than a hundred different private 

owners in the decisions. They formulated twelve 

basic principles regarding the extent of public space, 

the infrastructure, the scale of the buildings, the 

accessibility of the district and the redevelopment of 

the industrial heritage. These basic principles form 

the key themes of an urban project that is always open 

to new developments, investments and opportunities. 

The Prime Tower was constructed on the borders of 

Zürich West, a landmark and an important stimulus 

to the development of the new district. The office 

tower, with its glazed façades constantly changing 

colour, is circled by public space which connects 

the surrounding new and renovated buildings. The 

immediate environment is the site of countless new 

and ambitious building projects. 

Zürich West 

Amt für Städtebau Stadt 

Zürich 

under construction, Zürich 

Prime Tower 

Gigon Guyer Architekten 

2011, Zürich 


52

53


Chief Executive Officer – 

Artistic Director 

Paul Dujardin 

Deputy Exhibitions Director 

France de Kinder 

Coordination BOZAR 

ARCHITECTURE 

Iwan Strauven, Marie-Cécile Guyaux 

Collaborators BOZAR EXPO 

Axelle Ancion, Joris Erven, Nicolas 

Bernus, Roger Van Der Meulen 

Collaborators BOZAR STUDIOS 

Lucie Moers, Vera Claessens 

Collaborators BOZAR COM 

Géraldine Jonville, Bettina Saerens, 

Annelien Mallems, Sabine Jonckheere 

Exhibition 


Architecture and urban 

transformation in Europe 

09.10 > 28.11.2010 


Initiative 

Brussels-Capital Region 

Co-production 

Architecture Workroom Brussels, 

BOZAR ARCHITECTURE, A+ Revue 

belge d’architecture 

Curator 

Joachim Declerck, Architecture 

Workroom Brussels 

Co–curator 

Roeland Dudal, Architecture 

Workroom Brussels 

Project team 

Nathanaëlle Baës-Cantillon, Elise 

François, Pieterjan Gijs (Architecture 

Workroom Brussels) 

Cartography 

Alexandra Dierick, Simon De 

Waepenaere, Liselotte Vroman 

(Architecture Workroom Brussels); 

Prem Krishnamurthy, Chris Chenghuan 

Wu (Project Projects) 

Advisory board 

Olivier Bastin, Jean-Didier Bergilez, 

Hans Ibelings, Pascale Ingelaere, 

Michel Jacques, Andrea Mariucci, 

Thierry Mercken, Michel Steens, Iwan 

Strauven, Anne-Sophie Walazyc 

Exhibition design 

Bureau vers plus de bien-être (V+), 

Brussels 

Graphic design 

Project Projects, New York 

Video 

The Office for Nonfiction Storytelling, 

Rotterdam 

Text 

Joeri De Bruyn – Joachim Declerck 

Copy editing 

Gracienne Benoit (FR), Joeri De Bruyn 

(NL), Michelle Gerard Ramahlo (ENG) 

Translations 

Dynamics Translations (FR / ENG), 

Anne Baudouin (ENG), Nathalie 

Callens (FR), Walter Provo (ENG) 

Brussels Timeline 

Sarah Levy 

Graphic design, Brussels Timeline 

Pleaseletmedesign, Brussels 

Exhibition installation 

Aorta 

Transport 

Art & Exhibition Services 

Table production 

Kaesemans Metaalbouw 

Exhibition printing 

Antwerp Digital Print 

Pelegrie 

Visitor’s guide printing 

Drukkerij De Cuyper 

Thanks to 

All the participating architects and 

photographers. 

The persons interviewed in the 

film: Olivier Bastin, Pierre Blondel, 

Kees Christiaanse, Frans De 

Keyzer, Vincent Feltesse, Christoph 

Gantenbein, Daniel Hilfiker, 

Cathy Macharis, Cornelia Mattiello- 

Schwaller, Shelley Mc Namara, 

José Menéndez, Benoit Moritz, 

Frank Schneider, Bernardo Secchi, 

Guido Tabellini, Benedetta Tagliabue, 

Paola Viganò. 

ADT-ATO, AATL, IBSA-BISA 

Jorn Bihain, Noémie Beys, 

Bart Canfyn, Patrick Crahay, Sabine 

De Vijlder, Wim Embrechts, Salomon 

Frausto, Ariane Herman, Annabelle 

Guérin, Pierre Huyghebaert, 

Prem Krishnamurthy, Gery Leloutre, 

Jean-Baptiste Levée, John S. 

Moerland, Paul Mouchet, Nathalie 

Pelegrie, Sabine Ringelheim, Curt 

Otto Teich, Carole Thays, Sandrine 

Tonnoir, Ab van der Wiel, Roel van 

Tour, Sergio de Vincenzo, Victor 

Vroegindeweij, Benjamin Wayens, 

Bety Waknine, Chris Cheng-huan Wu. 


54

55

Image credits 

Carabanchel © Duccio Malagamba 

Mirador © Rob ‘t Hart 

Borneo and Sporenburg © West 8 

4 dwellings Seinwachterstraat 

© Kim Zwarts 

Mountain Dwellings © JDS 

Île Seguin Rives de Seine 

© Diener & Diener Architekten 

Eden Bio © David Boureau 

Chassé Park Appartementen 

© Gilbert Fastenaken 

De Rotterdam © OMA 

The Red Apple © Rob ‘t Hart 

VoltaMitte © Tonatiuh Ambrosetti 

Wohnhaus Schwarzpark 

© Ruedi Walti 

Università Bocconi 

© Università Luigi Bocconi 

Cinéma Sauvenière © Alain Janssens 

Ufo © Hans Werleman 

Shoppingcenter K © Griet Ollivier 

Les Ballets C de la B – LOD 

© Filip Dujardin 

Les Bains des Docks © Roland Halbe 

Elementary School Leutschenbach 

© Dario Pfammater 

Casa Da Musica © Phillipe Ruault 

MAXXI : National Museum of XXI 

century Arts © Roland Halbe 

Ecole d’architecture 

© Lacaton & Vassal 

Spoor Noord © Stad Antwerpen 

A8renA © Luk Kraamer 

Hardbrücke Station © Roger Frei 

Car Park & Terminus Hoenheim-Nord 

© Roger Rothan 

Tramway © Cristian Désile 

Metro © Nigel Young Foster + Partners 

Metro © Luis Ferreira Alves 

Souterrain Tram Tunnel 

© Hans Werlemann 

Parking des Célestins 

© Guillaume Perret 

Central Park Turnhout 

© Office Kersten Geers David 

Van Severen 

Trinitat Park © Luis On 

Île de Nantes 

© Arnauld Duboys Fresney 

TID Tower / Skanderbeg Square 

© 51N4E 

Hafencity © Thomas Hampel, 

Elbe&Flut 

More London © Nigel Young Foster + 

Partners 

Campus Novartis © Novartis 

Forum 3 © Christian Richters 

Îlot St. Maurice © Hans Werleman 

Zürich West © Juliet Haller Stadt 

Zürich 

Prime Tower © Gigon Guyer 

Architekten 

Hôtel Industriel Berlier 

© Georges Fessy 

Ferronnerie Dynamo 

© Dominique Marc Wehrli 

Santa Caterina Market 

© Roland Halbe 

Im Viadukt © Ralph Hutt 

De Meelfabriek © Atelier Peter 

Zumthor & Partner 


56

57

Notes 


58

59

Alexandre 

Chemetoff 

A+ 

belgisch tijdschrift 

voor architectuur 

revue belge 

d’architecture 

Architecture Workroom 


© arnauld duboys fresney 

the forecourt of the naves seen from the quai de la fosse 

île de nantes, september 2008 

lezing | conférence | lecture 

15.11.2010 – 19:00 

in het frans | en français | in french 

inkom | entrée | ticket 8 eur / 5 eur (red. –26/60+)

Peter 

Zumthor 

A+ 

belgisch tijdschrift 

voor architectuur 

revue belge 

d’architecture 

Architecture Workroom 


lezing | conférence | lecture 

29.11.2010 – 19:00 

in het engels | en anglais | in english 

inkom | entrée | ticket 8 eur / 5 eur (red. –26/60+)

In the context of the Belgian Presidency 

of the European Union.


Architecture and Urban Transformation in Europe

Building for Brussels guide-EN

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