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.

EUROPEAN AWARD AHI 2025

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Royal Museum of Fine Arts (KMSKA)

Royal Museum of Fine Arts (KMSKA)

Built-in the 19th century, Antwerp's Royal Museum of Fine Arts (KMSKA) was conceived as a 'daylight museum' but underwent many haphazard changes over the centuries. This intervention brings back the museum's ancient grandeur by combining a thorough renovation of the historical building with a contemporary extension concealed within the existing structure. Original dark pink, green and red colours, tall columns, and ceiling ornaments in plasterwork are brought back in the 19th-century exhibition halls. Meanwhile, the new vertical museum arises as a completely autonomous entity, built within the four original patios. Wherever the new extension 'cuts' the museum's solid mass, subtle marble inlays have been added. The vertical museum charts a route full of surprises with bright white exhibition halls, hidden rooms, long staircases, far-reaching sightlines, and varying gradations of daylight. These contrasting yet dialoguing entities coexist as two different worlds in one building, both challenging and at the service of the art.

Category

Built heritage

Edition

5
Winner

Year

2020

Author

KAAN Architecten
Dikkie Scipio
Vincent Panhuysen
Kees Kaan

External collaborators

Management: Bureau Bouwtechniek, KAAN Architecten
Structural/MEP engineer: Royal Haskoning DHV
Lights and acoustics: Royal Haskoning DHV, KAAN Architecten
Physics and fire control: Royal Haskoning DHV, Bureau Bouwtechniek, KAAN Architecten
Restauration advisor: Architectenbureau Fritz
Contractor: THV Artes Roegiers – Artes Woudenberg

City

Antwerp

Country

Belgium

Surface area sqm

30.000

Cost €

-

Client

Public

© Photographer

Sebastian van Damme