AHI Architectural Heritage Intervention

“Contributing to enhancing our heritage, as the way forward for 21 st Century architecture is our raison d’être; to emphasize a diverse, rich vision that necessarily complements the intervention is our mission, and achieving it with reflexive and purposeful efforts is the challenge”.

This project, founded in, and directed since, 2011 by Ramon Calonge, Oriol Cusidó, Marc Manzano and Jordi Portal, architects and members of the Group of Architects for the Defence and Intervention in Architectural Heritage (AADIPA), has, through the years become a platform that includes four actions that are both independent and transversal.
 
The European Award, a biennial event that brings together and showcases the multiple approaches of intervention in Europe.

The International Biennial, a framework that serves to compare and gain closer insight of quality interventions in architectural heritage in non-European countries.

The digital Archive, a live and open window that provides a panoramic view of interventions in the history of our surroundings.

The Forum, a meeting place where you can participate in on-going debates about the main preoccupations and lines of thought about interventions in architectural heritage in Europe.

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City Hall of Antwerp

City Hall of Antwerp

Antwerp city hall is the most important Renaissance building in the Low Countries. Soon after its completion, this monument from 1564 (now a World Heritage Site) was acclaimed internationally. The main changes the building underwent in the 19th century, when the courtyard was covered, and the staircases renewed. Of a similar order is the current transformation: another valuable structural build campaign. The current design dealt mainly with the third floor, which until recently played no significant role in the architecture. Replacing the two central old roof trusses with a steel structure with overhead lights creates attractive vestibules that open up the surrounding spaces and transform them into usable office environments. The architecture of the current interventions responds to and accentuates the old asymmetry of the floor plan. The new interventions of the vestibules as well as the staircases show the same concern as the 19th-century: a weighed-up modernisation.

Author

HUB
Origin
Bureau Bouwtechniek

Collaborators

Stability: BAS, Kessel-Lo
Special techniques: RCR, Herent
Building physics: Daidalos-Peutz, Leuven
Fire safety: Fire Protection
General contractor: Monument, Ingelmunster

Edition

6
Finalist

Year

2022

City

Antwerp

Country

Belgium

Website

www.origin.eu

Surface area sqm

9.432

Cost €

23.800.000

Client

Public

Original Programme

Government

Programme

Government

© Photographer

Stijn Bollaert

Períod

Renaissance

Type of intervention

Transformation

Level of intervention

Structural