Charleroi Photography Museum Belgium, Wallonia-Brussels Architecture Images

Charleroi Museum of Photography

New Belgian Building design by l’Escaut Architecture

24 Sep 2008

Charleroi Museum of Photography Extension

Location: Mont-sur-Marchienne, Belgium
Date built: 2008
Design: l’Escaut Architecture

Photos: Gilbert Fastenaekens

Photography Museum in Belgium

Mies van der Rohe Awards Nominee 2009

Charleroi Museum of Photography New Wing

Hidden within a traditional block of houses, the new extension to the Museum of Photography in Charleroi takes roots in the orchard of a former Carmelite convent. The building is inside the enclosure of the convent, which hides a big garden which has several trees registered with the Heritage Inventory. The park is surrounded by backyards from suburban streets; a public school and a sports complex.

By investing the park, the new building invites visitors and neighbours to inhabit this inner outdoors. The park creates the link between three social functions: culture, education, and sports. Its opening to the public becomes a matter of social dynamics and urban transformation.

During the project, the reflection enlarged to the surroundings of the Museumcomplex. The city of Charleroi promotes this approach through the development of a ‘master plan for urban renewal’ for the aria. This plan is the result of a consultation process with the inhabitants and was fuelled by an anthropological approach.

From the outside, the new building seems to call out to the surroundings, its succession of hollows creating lines of sight or backgrounds of a spatial scenography. The multiple shapes in the foreground become meaningful since they are related to their context (park, houses, equipments…). The inner stroll catches this outer experimentation and gives it the form of multiple looks.

Charleroi Museum of Photography Photos : Eloisa Astudillo

The architecture playfully blurs the boundaries between inside and outside spaces: the cantilever grows hollow to allow daylight lighting up an outside fern cover; the winter garden shelters fragrant plants inside the museum… Each place forms both a specific room and an antechamber to the following ones, as a kind of ‘between space’ or ‘between the two’.

Charleroi Museum of Photography Extension – Building Information

Program: exhibition rooms, cafeteria, library, auditorium, educational service, work space, storage space
Promoter: Belgian French Community (Communauté Française de Belgique)
Process: 6 months of programme work with Xavier Canonne, director of the Museum
collaboration with Jeanine Cohen (artist) for the façade panelling

Architects: l’Escaut Architecture
Structure: bureau d’études Weinand
Fluids: SECA
Acoustics: Rémi Raskin
Landscaping: LandinZicht – Bjorn Gielen
Artist: Jeanine Cohen
Signage: Designlab

Charleroi Museum of Photography images / information from l’Escaut Architecture

Location: Mont-sur-Marchienne, Belgium, northern Europe