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Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp

Contemporary Belgian building design by Claus en Kaan Architecten

Location: Antwerp, Belgium

Design: Claus en Kaan Architecten

Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten

8 Jul 2008

KMSKA Antwerp

The assignment for Antwerp’s Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten (KMSKA) consists of the drawing up of a Master Plan for the extension and restoration of the museum; and this encompasses more than purely physical changes to the building. It is an extremely long-term project (projected to 2020), with – for the present – a limited budget.

Central to our design is a spatial strategy that will enable the museum to remain accessible throughout the entire process of the metamorphosis: the museum will not close for this period. The precondition for achieving this is perfect management of the shell, programme and technology: these components therefore also form the crux of our approach.

photograph: Luuk Kramer

From an architectural point of view, our approach is reserved, as we are convinced that a museum must be of an exceptional quality: a quality that serves the arts, rather than being a ‘theme park’ in and of itself.

This is not so much a design, as an approach to a design. Liberated from the urge to originality, such an approach can take on an almost infinite series of forms; the form is not the ends, but the consequence of an action. The degree of attention with which the action is performed determines the degree of attractiveness.

photograph from architects

Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerp – Building Information

Programme: Renovation in a number of phases of monumental museum, museum lighting and climate control, city centre location, complex logistics
Location: Antwerp, Belgium
Client: FoCI – Cultural Infrastructure, Fund Brussels
Design: 2004

Completion: 2020 (estimated)
GFA: 19,000 m2
Construction cost: EUR 12,000,000 (first part)
Project team: Kees Kaan, Dikkie Scipio, Dorothee Korr, Eva Franch, Kim Sneyders, Ralph de Schipper, Martin Zwinggi

Claus en Kaan Architecten

KMSKA Antwerp images / information from Claus en Kaan Architecten

Location: Antwerp, Belgium, western Europe