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controversy); and the patchwork of old wooden window
frames collected from all of the countries in the
eu
,
which forms the facade of the complex’s main exten-
sion. The House of Glass museum in Lommel
(01-469)
is another example of a radical addition, but in this case,
the addition is made to buildings with little intrinsic
value, creating a linking element and a strong statement
that transfigures the meaning. Thus, with respect to
architectural heritage, one can create contrast or a radi-
cal counterpoint, or one can attempt to find a harmony
of scale or rhythm, as Alvar Aalto did with the Enso
building at the port of Helsinki in 1959.
Created in 1997, Philippe Samyn’s remarkable project
for the offices of
ccb
-
vfb
(01-351)
on boulevard
Poincaré in Brussels falls into the category of architec-
tures of juxtaposition or counterpoint. This was perhaps
the only possible solution for connecting the contrasting
structures of the former locks of the River Senne (built
by Léon Suys in 1871 in a neoclassical style close to
that of Percier and Fontaine) to a small and uninteresting
building from the second half of the nineteenth century.
The Château de Seneffe in Hainaut was built between
1763 and 1768. It is one of the most beautiful works
by the architect Laurent-Benoît Dewez. The develop-
ment of the outbuildings and the orangery
(01-329 and
01-341)
was carried out successively for the Petrofina
Group and for the Communauté Française de Belgique.
The outbuildings, placed around a large courtyard to the
left of the château, currently contain a series of small,
austere, quasi-monastic housing units for research-
ers. The meeting of ancient and modern is done with
ease and modesty, but without any concession to
imitation. The development of the rear of the orangery
essentially consists of covering the space with a three-
dimensional metallic structure, and of reconstructing
the passageway from the formerly dilapidated buildings.
Designed in 1997, the development of the Château
Groenhof in Malderen
(01-352)
concerns a modernisa-
tion of usage as well as an addition comparable to that
which the architect would later build at Leuven railway
station – a glass and metal structure demonstrating a
desire for integration and similar to the many coverings
of courtyards and atriums that can be seen today. In
2001, Samyn also designed an interesting project for
the Château d’Alden Biesen in Bilzen
(01-425)
, involving
a polyamide textile covering. As for the project for the
new parliament building in Tirana, designed in 2007
(01-522)
, it will be embedded in a Stalinist structure.
The new design by Philippe Samyn will preserve the
autonomy of the two architectural styles, while creating
a balanced connection and retaining the traces of his-
tory – painful though they may be. The examples given
here are more a matter of skilful collage rather than of
working directly onto heritage structures. Other works,
however, demonstrate more sophisticated integration.
One of these projects
(01-312)
concerns the former
mortuary chapel at the Brugmann Hospital, built by
Victor Horta in the early 1920s. It bears the mark of an
Art Nouveau that had begun to run out of steam, as
well as a desire for a stripped-down form of classicism.
This little chapel, located at the edge of the site, is
currently the hospital’s only listed element. The users
wanted to transform the two levels of the chapel into a
small conference centre, with all of the spatial divisions
that such a project would require. The transformation
had to be discreet, and was built following the often con-
tradictory requirements of the hospital administration as
well as those of the Royal Commission for Monuments
and Sites. There were also security requirements and
archaeological investigations among other constraints.
A similar problem arose during the refitting of the
Flagey building (
01-251)
, parts of which were also
listed. Philippe Samyn simultaneously transformed
Studio 4 – the main concert hall and recording studio
of the former Institut National de Radiodiffusion (built
between 1933 and 1939) – and raised the lower parts
of the rear facade facing the rue du Belvédère. There
was no organic link between these two interventions,
the second of which was done by addition, one of
Philippe Samyn’s favourite techniques. The first was
done by insertion or remodelling in the architecture of
01-522
Parliamentary complex,
Tirana, 2007
01-432
kbc
, Leuven, 2002–2003