Competition Genk

Located on the century-old Winterslag mining site in Genk, the proposal endeavors to connect three worlds :

… memory. Highlighting a still recent industrial past, Winterslag’s magnificent built volumes constitute an eerie supernatural world more reminiscent of a Jules Verne novel. The enormous volumes and complex machinery are revealed to the public in their renovated yet little-altered environment, often twisted and difficult to access, representing harshness past.

… creation. Rehabilitation includes a pluri-disciplinary and multi-cultural program making use of the whole of the existing location as a medium auspicious for the emergence of contemporary projects, with old and new spaces as catalyzers for these. The Red Dot Center of Design, for example, is located in one of the most impressive ancient halls, making use of the awe-inspiring volume to illustrate to perfection contemporary industrial vision. Next to this, two new theater halls are presented as multi-purpose and efficient machineries, like brainstorming boxes ambitiously equipped and put at the disposal of contemporary creators. These independent units (large hall seating 550, small hall seating 150) are gathered into one unique volume or machine, distinct from the main building, the gaps between them serving as foyers, throughways, terraces, practice studios, …

… and autonomous evolution. Winding its way through the resulting space, a single vital thread appears connecting all worlds : men and women in action…in perpetual evolution … moving from one experience to the next, morphing, shaken then strengthened by interactions with context. This thread or connector is materialized by a copper channel snaking its way through the rooms (or disciplines), disappearing (in gestation) then re-appearing (in action), at times protective (covered), at others open to the world (allowing peepholes, passages, and bridges), introvert (closed to all) or exaltingly extrovert (transforming itself into a high-flying vantage point), twisting and turning, in a constant state of tortuous, unstable but vital metamorphosis … this is the labyrinth of human adventure.