39
EUROPA
Origins of the project
From 2002 on and in dialogue with the
Belgian authorities, several locations were
considered to house the headquarters of
the European Council. In the end, Block
A of the
Résidence Palace
complex was
chosen. The general consensus, both among
Belgian authorities and Council, was that
the
Résidence Palace
building was well
located to become (after major restructuring
and renovation) the headquarters of the
European Council. It was located smack
in the middle of the European Quarter;
immediately adjacent to the
Justus lipsius
building, headquarters and main building
of the Council and the
Lex
building, which
had been recently acquired by the Council;
next to the International Press Centre, which
had just set up office in the C Block C of
the
Residence Palace
; with excellent public
transport links (train and metro).
In June 2002, the Belgian Government
decided, as part of an overall development
project for the European Quarter, to suggest
to the European Council to transfer Block A
of the
Residence Palace
complex
1
to it, after
major restructuring. A technical file drawn up
by the
Régie des Bâtiments
in collaboration
with Beliris was submitted to the Council in
October 2002. It was studied jointly by the
Belgian Government departments and by the
Council’s secretariat-general. After an initial
analysis, the site and building proved to be
fairly difficult to convert into headquarters
for the European Council, i.e., Block A
of
Résidence Palace
2
was a rather mixed
complex of buildings; a section was made up
of former housing dating back to the 1920s,
to which a new façade had been added and
offices in the 1960s, and again in 1990; the
site would be crossed by the new Schuman-
Josaphat railway line , i.e., the metro line
to the airport; the façade and a number of
indoor spaces in the section dating back to
the 1920s were about to be listed.
The European Council approved the
proposal by the Belgian Government during
its session of 25 and 26 March 2004. With
this agreement, the European Council also
laid down the programme as well as the
technical and financial framework for the
restructuring of the
Résidence Palace
, in
order to create an infrastructure in it that
would meet its needs. One of the points in
this agreement was the requirement for the
Council’s secretariat-general to organise a
European architecture competition for this
new project. This agreement also laid down
that the
Régie des Bâtiments
(of the Belgian
State) would take on the task of contracting
authority for the study and implementation
of the project.
Competition rules
The competition rules were drawn up by
the
Building Unit,
in close collaboration
with the International Union of Architects
(UIA), the
Régie des Bâtiments
and the
Unité de Coordination des Acquisitions
of
the secretariat-general
3
(UCA). The Council
expressed the wish for the creators of the
project to design a new building with high
political and symbolic value whilst ensuring
that, for activities, it had to perfectly
accommodate the Council’s functional
needs
4
, by providing the best possible
conditions to its occupants in terms of
safety. It also had to present a certain image
of the European Council and the Council to
citizens; be a striking landmark in the city,
for its surroundings (European Quarter)
and vis-à-vis its immediate neighbours (the
Justus Lipsius
and the
Lex
buildings, also in
use by the Council)
5
.
In addition, the project had to be able
to adapt to the Institution’s evolving
needs as well as those of society and its
technological developments. Lastly, the
Council had requested that special attention
be paid to the choice of materials and
technical facilities compatible with the
concept of sustainable development. As a
public building it had to have a “service life”
that was long enough to write off costs to
be committed, in other words, the solutions
provided for the
Résidence Palace
in terms
of construction, facilities and materials had
to set an example.
Town planning regulations
The
Résidence Palace
site is complex, i.e.,
the building is located in a highly built-
up area, close to other administrative
buildings; it is subject to a
Plan Particulier
d’Aménagement du Sol
(PPAS)
6
. Said PPAS
notably lays down the purpose of the site
(administrative), alignments, construction
density as well as the maximum height of
the construction (DNG 107, diameter).
Some sections of the
Résidence Palace
complex are listed
7
, i.e., for Block A, they
include the façades on the “internal street”,
the central corridor on the ground floor and
the entrance halls. The options to use the
History of the installation project of
the European Council and the Council of
the European Union in the new Europa and
renovated
Résidence Palace
buildings
FROM RéSIDENCE PALACE TO EUROPA
