01. It is said that represents the heart of Europe. The city is a complex ensemble of social, economic, and cultural simultaneities that can be understood in its architecture. A construction that speaks of the social and organizational structure of a place. 02. The city is understood as "An architecture, and this simultaneously, as a construction of the city over time." 03. The river was his origin, it brought wealth but determined its character. The city reminds us of its commercial and defensive nature. 04. Its Architecture is expressive, retains the patina and the character of the people, their traditions. It builds on itself, and it is temporary, but its idea endures.
05. A find triggers the project, a baroque monument, and a ruin next to it. A 15th-century Dominican monastery lies forgotten, around it a collection of fragments that contain and are part of the history of the city. 06. In 1262 the Dominican Order began the construction of the first monastery Church. 07. The locale has been built as a result of the destruction, re-construction, alteration, and changes of use. A sort of factors that enrich and shape the idea of a place that is still alive but forgotten. 08. It is an area of religious worship, it was a monastery, church, warehouse, wedding chapel, and kindergarten; monument, ruin, and point of tourist interest but above all, the civic centre of public life. The block responds to the city, adapts to its inhabitants, and lasts over time. An event In 1698 a heavy fire overwhelmed the complex, destroying the roofs and leaving 3/4 of the monastery in ruins. The reconstruction of the church begins, it is financed with the sale of the monastery to private owners. 09. Urban archaeology and the study of pre-existing elements of the project are part of the working methodology. The inventory appears as a study, catalogue, and analysis tool to understand the stories behind the architecture.
10. A choreography of complex geometric and spatial relationships reveals the different elements that make up the block. The vestige is made up of buildings from the 15th, 17th, and 19th centuries. 11. A four-winged monastery set around a courtyard adjacent to the church. A ruined two-winged monastery. The old library and herbarium. A garden, full of small vestiges and altars. A neo-classical garden wall and a monumental gate. 12. As a result of the discovery, an exhaustive study begins to understand history and culture through elements, objects, and materials, but also the ability to adapt and reuse the different elements without losing their original idea. On these remains the project will be built, the city had chosen its place.
13. Antwerp is perceived as a palimpsest, a cluster of clearly visible temporal layers that tell us a story. In the same way, the project wants to be erected on what is already built. 14. Three stories tell us about the project and allow us to reinforce this idea of time layers. The first is how to reveal existing layers through the controlled dismantling of insignificant and dilapidated buildings. The second, Insert a set of activating objects that give the place of function and cohesion. And the third, to create a contrast in the architectural language that speaks to us of the dialogue between the new and the old. 15. If civic and cultural public spaces are one of the most fascinating works of architecture that define the city, we want to build one more, representative of the time and place, of a collective and ecological nature.
16. A house of memories is proposed. A museum in the form of a flexible cabinet of curiosities that celebrates the complexity of the social fabric through its collective memory. Collective memory understood as the soul of the city, which is, in essence, the city itself and its people, their stories, and history. 17. The museum studies Antwerp through common and mundane objects that can evoke memories and feelings while telling us their stories. 18. The Forum offers a space to encourage citizen participation, debate, and reflection concerning the destruction, and construction of the city: past, present, and future. 19. An archive for people's memories offers a space dedicated to collect, store, and exhibit citizen's objects and their stories. Everyone has the choice to be remembered through their objects. 20. The memory is enlivened, stimulated with ghostly and blurred images, the opacity and translucency of the material are used as an evocative strategy.
21. The pre-existing state determines intervention at different levels. A building facade is shown before the city. A flexible gallery of light construction with precast elements is introduced into the patio and covers it. It is reversible and provocative. The ruins are consolidated becoming a new set. The garden harmonizes and unites all the elements. 22. The facade building arouses our curiosity, blurred figures in movement draw our attention. We access a hall of exaggerated proportions that transits between the ancient and the contemporary. Suddenly, we see it, in front, a wide staircase that guides our experience, to reach it first, we must cross part of the old building and enter the courtyard. Upon access we perceive the new inserted volume and the tension it generates. One facing the other, they stare at each other as if wanting to start a dialogue but they never touch, they observe. The volume appears raised from the ground, supported by a swarm of columns that are familiar to us. Iron supports recovered from industrial structures along the river, form these supports.
23. The long and narrow galleries of the old monastery evoke the most medieval city, collecting the individual memories of its citizens. In contrast, the inserted volume presents wide and open spaces that are reminiscent of the city's ambitions and aspirations, contain their collective memories, and represent their transformations. The main circulation is established in the inserted volume through which we access the different levels, building metaphorical and physical bridges between both structures that allow us to experiment and frame different moments, thus establishing the link between both interventions.
24. The shape is not important, the contrast is. The pre-existing architecture is of medieval geometry and character, ornate and stereotomic. The scale reminds us of the power of the church and its symbolism. The intervention seeks contrast and temporal evidence. Lightweight steel and timber structures lift the new volumes of simple form. The contrast is produced with the use of glass with different opacities that reinforce the lightness of the ensemble.
