Positioned on the side and certainly not willing to interfere in Rubens’ famous lines of sight, the new reception building for the Rubenshuis - the house, studio and garden of artist Peter Paul Rubens - is a discrete extension to this historical site. Besides the reception function, it also contains a multimedia experience centre, a museum café, a reading room and the library collection of the Rubenianum, known as the world’s most extensive... Read more

The Bourse in Brussels has just reopened its doors, exchanging its status as an urban fortress for that of a genuine public building, given back to the citizen. In doing so, it envisions a highly accessible, vibrant, and diversified future.  The initial request from the international competition was for an ambitious redevelopment of the monument – to improve its accessibility with respect to the pedestrian zone and the Grand Place... Read more

Stokerij - the Dutch word for ‘distillery’ - Ateliers and Housing are part of the new urban development of the Dijledelta in Leuven. The Ateliers are located on the site of the former Stella Artois brewery, while the residential area is situated in between the former brewery and an old water tower.The original building of the brewery was a robust brick ruin refined with industrial art-deco details. The design for the renovation and re-... Read more

In order to arrive at a thoughtful strategy that proves itself to be sustainable and intelligent in the long term, a master plan vision for the entire building block was first developed. The proposition of a new wing offers the opportunity to better organise the entire site, to relieve pressure from the interior block and to complement old and new in a targeted way. The ambition was therefore to increase the quality of the 'building as a whole'... Read more

For the redevelopment of the Boerentoren in Antwerp, the central question was how this tower - which previously served mainly as an office building - could optimally exude culture in the future and house the patrimony of The Phoebus Foundation. Robbrecht en Daem's design was built around the democratic idea of making art as accessible as possible. To make art and 'life' coexist.Encounters with art are far from obvious. On the completely open and... Read more

Xavier Hufkens – a leading contemporary art gallery in Europe – reopened its Sint-Jorisstraat gallery in Brussels in the summer of 2022, following a spatial reformulation of the existing flagship gallery with an important new extension by Robbrecht en Daem architecten. The project holds a special connection to the building’s history: thirty years ago, Robbrecht en Daem – in collaboration with Marie-José Van Hee architecten –... Read more

Situated at the head of Spoor Noord, the hospital is a hinge between the park, the docks and the city, and thus benefits from each of their qualities. The limited surface area of the site requires the hospital to be organised vertically. The hospital structure has a clearly discernible layered construction. All outpatient activities with consultation rooms, centres of knowledge and medical technical services are in the lowest section. The various... Read more

The project involves the redevelopment of an inner-city block in the centre of Ghent to provide ninety residential units, some new-build and others partially housed in the protected monuments of the former Royal Academy of Fine Arts and fire station. These existing buildings flank a new semi-public interior street that serves as the backbone for the redevelopment of the entire block. The interior walkway connects with two new apartment buildings... Read more

Robbrecht en Daem architecten, together with Osar architects, has won the design competition for the Jessa Hospital in Hasselt, Belgium. The design is driven by a renewed search for the human scale of the hospital. In this search a contradictory question arises: how can a hospital with an immense surface area (135,000 m2) achieve the necessary small scale and humanity through its architecture? The response is not to put 'the patient' at its... Read more

‘No space, architecturally, is a space unless it has natural light.’ - Louis Kahn On a site on the Garenmarkt, next to the Groeningemuseum, a new exhibition hall will be erected by the end of 2024 that will house two museum spaces and opens out onto a new park. The exhibition areas will be constructed at a raised level and will be separated from each other by a public passageway (Scala Grande), so that an open, transparent and freely... Read more

3 Fonteinen is a traditional lambic and gueuze brewery with a long history dating back to 1887. It is known for its adherence to heritage, honest production methods and the place it has held for years in the top 50 best breweries in the world.Today, the brewery is located 'on top of the mountain' in the village centre of Beersel, while the wooden casks are located 'down below' in Lot, next to the Senne. It is in this latter location that 3... Read more

The reconstruction of the Zuidboulevard in Waregem ensures a thorough renovation of the city. The Zuidboulevard is the new gateway to the city and connects the cultural centre De Schakel, the city hall and the new library with each other. Instead of being a cul-de-sac, this renewed boulevard is a turning point, a climax for the previously interrupted loop for shopping, walking and cycling. This transforms the site into an easily navigable place... Read more

The residential building ‘Zuidertuin’ is part of the urban development for the Nieuw Zuid district in Antwerp. This new district extends between one of the busiest traffic intersections in Belgium and the wide open spaces of the Scheldt Quays and the river bed. Some 49 residential units of varying sizes with ‘through lounge’ are divided among the six levels in the form of duplex units or standard apartments. At the centre of the plinth... Read more

The general concept of the design focuses on the various ways of experiencing art. Three museological rooms, heart of the Udarnik project, differ regarding user experiences. Large differences of scale and light atmosphere stimulate the museological experience. The three exhibition rooms are modules that can be arranged differently, this ensures the flexibility and continuity of Udarnik: The Incubator on the groundfloor, a central hall as a free... Read more

‘Route N16 – Public Places for Private Experience’ is an exhibition and a pragmatic study that explores the limits and potentialities of public space along the N16. The regional N16 road crosses what we can safely call the heart of the Flemish urban sprawl. Four communes, Bornem, Puurs, Willebroek and Mechelen, all located in the province of Antwerp, are connected by the N16. This road winds through an area that is almost exemplary for... Read more

In the redevelopment of the city centre, the restored relationship with the River Lys forms the starting point. The presence of the Lys generates an enormous quality for the city: the watercourse is the bearer of urban identity. The course of the river defines the structure of the city centre. Contact with the Lys is made possible by the construction of a mooring quay, a promenade and a square in front of the Church, located on the bend of the... Read more

On top of a polished concrete base raised slightly off the ground, a light, gleaming, green-painted steel construction unfolds to form a shelter to protect delicate works of art. The diagonal lines of passage through this new pavilion interweave Middelheim Park with the Hortifloria Garden, a recent extension of this well-known Antwerp sculpture park. Four vertical recesses provide the entrances to the pavilion, divide the space into four and... Read more

Following two demolition campaigns for a world exhibition in 1913 and an administrative centre never built in the 60s, Ghent’s historic heart degenerated for decades into a desolate parking lot in between a suite of three adjoining Gothic towers. In two consecutive competitions between 1996 and 2005, Robbrecht en Daem architecten and Marie-José Van Hee architects proposed their own programme, countering the initial competition requirement.... Read more

The shopping centre at Sint-Janspoort is a more sustainable counterpart to the large shopping centres on the outskirts of towns and cities and covers a whole block in the historical city centre of Kortrijk. With its interiorised street pattern and monumental atrium – the garden of light – this shopping centre forms a diagonal link between Steenpoort and Veemarkt. The tower closes off one end of the Romeinselaan. The volumetry of the block,... Read more

Two new projection halls for the internationally acclaimed Royal Belgian Film Archives have been installed into the excavated volume under Victor Horta’s Centre for Fine Arts. This intervention has made it possible for the ‘Salles des Arts Décoratifs’ to be restored, as defined in the master plan for the restoration of the building. Cinematek’s prominent collection of historical film apparatus is displayed in a Wunderkammer, a free... Read more

In the best museums and galleries one finds one's way through a series of rooms, where the artefacts are carefully lit and set off by calm backgrounds. A degree of repetition helps navigation, some variation helps orientation.The proposals for the Whitechapel Art Gallery are bold in their restraint (someone commented: 'where’s the architecture?') and seize a simple but powerful opportunity: lower and upper floors are configured as circuits of... Read more

Refurbishment of the entrance hall and auditorium in the Royal Museum for Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA). This included the reception desk, benches, signalisation in the entrance hall, lectern, speaker’s desk and the separation wall in the auditorium.... Read more

The competition design for the Scheldt bridges in Temse forms a couple that connects a rich landscape with urban reality. In their appearance, the bridges are both related and contradictory. Their constructional expression is based on a basic model of civil engineering: the truss. In this way, the design of the new bridge enters into dialogue with the existing one. The latter has a dramatic expression that confronts solidity and mass. In contrast... Read more

The Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam is a complex amalgam of sections all built at different times. The extension by Robbrecht en Daem makes the museum into a single entity again. Green-tinted glass sheets introduce a rhythm into the façade that looks austere and elegant, but its layering also gives a hint of the complexity of the building. Inside, there is a striking link between Adrianus Van der Steur’s 1935 brick building and the... Read more

Rubens Square is a triangular square with a large opening towards the sea. Two long benches oriented parallel to the water are bordered by a wall of tempered glass which acts as protection from the wind. It is a particularly social place where elderly people often watch children play. The square’s tiles have a mosaic-like pattern with maritime tones that refer to the nearby sea. Blues, grey-greens and whites are interwoven like an abstract... Read more

The design for the square reconciles two aspects: on the one hand the heavy traffic is dealt with by two roundabouts, one at each end, and on the other a public forecourt is laid out for the Museum of Fine Art. Several works of art have been installed on the square: recovered fragments of the Loos monument by Auguste Rodin, a bench designed by Ann Demeulemeester and a fountain by Christina Iglesias, which forms the heart of the forecourt, gives... Read more

The design of the locomotive depot for the collectors Hauser & Wirth is the result of Robbrecht en Daem’s longterm association with artists and artworks. The Lokremise, or Lok depot, was not initially conceived as a museum, but as a collection display. The architecture was imagined in relation to the artworks. From the start, therefore, Paul McCarthy’s toppled studio, known as “The Box”, was included in the project and the architecture was... Read more

The Aue pavilions were temporarily built for the hundred days of Documenta IX in Kassel and formed one of the components housing the contemporary art exhibitions. Visited by six hundred thousand people, the pavilions showcased the work of twenty-eight artists. The Building was situated in the extensive baroque park of Friedrichs' Aue's. This park lies sixteen metres below the nearby Friedrichsplatz from where one could look down on the pavilions... Read more

Together with the work of Cristina Iglesias, René Daniëls and Philippe Van Snick, Isa Genzken’s sculptures form a basic component of the double exhibition Floor for a Sculpture, Wall for a Painting which was once described as Robbrecht en Daem’s ‘materialized manifesto’. In the gallery, two sturdy cavity walls were added to the existing architecture, as a resultof which a new corner was created. In one of the exhibitions, Van Snick... Read more