Projects – Robbrecht en Daem architecten

On 20 September 2024, arts centre Bozar hosted “Bartók in Space and Time,” a concert in which Robbrecht en Daem architecten mirrored the music of Béla Bartók in space. Conductor Gábor Káli and Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen performed Bartók's “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta” (1937), while that composition also showed itself spatially in five objects floating above the audience and orchestra. For this, Robbrecht en Daem went to... Read more

On an old industrial site near the Leuven Vaartkom and the Small Beguinage, we find the Bottelarij residential site. The design for this residential site was strongly influenced by its historical neighbour, the beguinage. (A side note: a beguinage is a typical Flemish way of living where single women from the 13th century onwards lived in community yet retained their own individuality. It was a very early form of independent living for women that... Read more

In a working class neigbourhood of Ghent, against the backdrop of nearby blocks of high-rise flats, Robbrecht en Daem converted an existing timber yard into new architectural studios. The roof of the shed, built by the wood construction company De Coene in the early seventies, was partially dismantled. What used to be the work floor has become an outdoor space that accommodates an arboretum fringed with wild grasses, a swimming pool, bicycle... 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

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

On the banks of the channel running through Brussels, this layered project combines a gymnasium, 16m high indoor & outdoor climbing facilities , a multipurpose sports hall and padel fields on top. The aim of the design is to inscribe itself in the specific context and thus increase the cohesion of the canal area, strengthen its identity and give extra quality to the public and open spaces. A public balcony, a kiosk, a viewpoint and cafétaria... 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

After an earlier intervention in the artist's studio and scenographies for his work in Initiatief 86, Documenta IX and De Dingen Die Ik Zie, Robbrecht en Daem architecten were also responsible for the scenography of the middle space of Raoul De Keyser's first posthumous retrospective. This central room became a kaleidoscopic space, a pentagonal form with different sides.... 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

Park Abbey is a 12th-century heritage site that is undergoing a complete restoration by Studio Roma. For the design of the circulation within the abbey's eastern (and primarily public) wing, Studio Roma called on Robbrecht en Daem architecten. Within this design, two tower volumes with a pentagonal footprint were chosen as circulation cores. The larger tower in exposed concrete is part of the museum route, and the smaller tower in steel serves as... Read more

Clad in a crystalline skin of structured glass and brass-coloured anodized aluminium frames, this park building is embedded in the variable topography of its site, with each side responding to a different context. Whereas the long facade addresses the longitude of the park and the frontality of the ‘Ereperk der Gefusilleerden’, a military cemetery for both World Wars, the northern volume anchors the building in the urban fabric... Read more

On the plots of land belonging to the former municipal slaughterhouse in Antwerp's Dam district, a master plan for a new part of the city is unfolding. The design by Robbrecht en Daem architecten includes three buildings within one of the building blocks. This is the first building block that will be built on the site. The head of this building block also marks the beginning of the future park.Despite the differences between the three buildings... Read more

The new Cera building positions itself carefully within the medieval core of Leuven, opposite the side entrance of the historic town hall and close to the Grote Markt. It constitutes the true ‘heart of the city’. Originally the site consisted of a complex conglomerate of buildings with the Hôtel d'Eynatten from 1760, a neo-Gothic wing from 1917 and a corner building in sober reconstruction architecture from 1948. In order to free up space in... 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 Halles aux Farines, situated on the right bank of the Garonne, was built along with the construction of the first railway lines and is centrally situated amidst a network of tracks. The former warehouse has been transformed into the municipal archives of Bordeaux, and forms the first link with the future eco-district of Bastide-Niel. The industrial history of the site acquires a new interpretation: the storerooms, where the archive boxes are... Read more

The volume for the State Archives, located in the city center, is meticulously matched to the scale of the surrounding buildings. The sturdy corner building respects the pattern of the street onto which it fronts, while the long horizontal volume behind adheres to the cornice height of the surrounding streets and alleys. At the end of the horizontal wing, the facade is set back from the plot boundary. This makes space available for a small public... 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

In the summer of 2013 Robbrecht en Daem architecten realizes a temporary pavilion based on a competition design by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from 1930. The design, a clubhouse for a golf course in the gently rolling countryside around the former industrial city of Krefeld, Germany, was never built at the time it was designed. Christiane Lange, art historian and curator for ProjektMIK, invited Robbrecht en Daem architecten to design an objet d'... 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

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

Ann Demeulemeester’s flagship store is in a corner building on Leopold De Waelplaats in Antwerp – the square to which the fashion designer contributed with a circular bench. The building is part of a prestigious row of houses and looks like an upper-middle-class house, but was designed and is used as a workshop. During the redesign, the ground floor was cleared, although the workplace character was preserved: the rough wooden floors, the iron... 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

Raoul De Keyser’s oeuvre is permeated by an original, internal and inherently spatial constellation. De Keyser’s paintings do not fit within the Renaissance idiom of a window upon an illusory perspective. The paintings shift, glide, oscillate, overlap and, at times, they also fall. Even when they do in fact suggest an architectonic space, a cabinet for example, there is a certain spatial friction. It is precisely this extremely controlled... Read more

The Zwin plain is a border-crossing natural reserve located at the North Sea Coast. Robbrecht en Daem architecten were invited for an Open Competition to provide this natural reserve with new visitors’ facilities. The proposed visitor center comprised of a ticket office, museum shop, auditorium, restaurant, exhibition pavilion and observation pavilions, alongside viewing platforms, vehicle parking and a farm for the maintenance of the estate... 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

Robbrecht en Daem was commissioned by Christiane Lange to design the exhibition of the furnishings and interior spaces that Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich had designed for Haus Lange, a building designed by Mies van der Rohe himself. The exhibition was held in the place where only recently this furniture was used on a daily basis. The house has since been converted into a museum and the architecture of Mies van der Rohe has become an object on... Read more

The conservation project for the Book Tower aims at restoring the historical site of the University Library, situated in the lively quartier Latin of Ghent, meanwhile at transforming it into a library for the 21st Century. The design unites the ambitions of the University to respectfully repair the monumental site to its original condition, but also to render it a contemporary house for a great diversity of users and for the valuable own... Read more

The Antwerp City Archives are housed in the 20.000 m2 Sint-Felix Warehouse, an icon of historical harbour architecture in Antwerp. The project involved the construction of concrete containers on the upper six storeys, for the conservation of documents from the city’s archives. On the top floor, a new oak roof structure accommodates reading and study rooms around three large, well-lit light wells. Access from the city is via a semi-public... 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

An extraordinary play of light is to be found in two of the former harbour warehouses that accommodate the Katoennatie in Antwerp. In one of them, domes in alabaster and leaded glass function as new skylights – designed by the Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias – and on top of the other is a roof of wooden slats through which sunlight slips in many layers. A new four-storey building connects the former warehouses. The ensemble of old and new... 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

Scenography of an exhibition in BOZAR Brussels on Flemish Artists in Rome during the Renaissance... Read more

In 1992, on the occasion of the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Robbrecht en Daem architecten collaborated with Juan Muñoz to create a pavilion titled the House Where It Always Rains. Pavilions are structures where art and architecture come together in the heady pursuit of pure experimentation. Somewhere between a folly and a model, the pavilion is an actual space, constructed so it can be occupied and looked at; but it has no apparent purpose.... 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

A penthouse was built on top of an industrial building with an art nouveau facade. This glass pavilion forms a still-life on the roof together with the technical installations enclosed inside a grating, and Isa Genzken’s work of art Camera. The frame of the work of art emphasises the role the flat plays as an observatory overlooking the town.... 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

Thanks to the exhibitions Chambres d’Amis and Initiatief ’86, in the summer of 1986 Ghent was transformed into an international centre of contemporary art. For Initiatief ’86, Robbrecht en Daem created a space specifically to exhibit the work of René Heyvaert. A corridor in St.-Pietersabdij was divided into three compartments that kept their distance from the existing architecture. This spatial modification laid the foundations for the... Read more