Refurbishment of a Town Hall

Built between 1561 and 1565, Antwerp’s Town Hall is a palimpsest that reveals its architectural evolution. While it has been adapted over the years, every intervention has reinterpreted earlier ideas, either in whole or in part. This is the spirit in which we continue to work. We appropriate existing motifs, ideas and figures and lend them a new contemporary form. In so doing, the palimpsest is enriched, and the building becomes more than the sum of its parts. A piece of furniture inspired by an 18^th-century garden, with inward- and outward-facing seats, fills the council chamber. A staircase grows out of the panelling like a flowing pathway, while a kitchenette is housed in a giant model of the building. Two new canopies are positioned beneath the historical wooden rafters. Under the campanile, we have freed up a monumental space to create a treasure chamber for the building.