A London-based architecture firm has beaten international competition to win the opportunity to re-design Ghent’s contemporary art museum S.M.A.K. and revitalise its relationship with the Belgian city.
S.M.A.K. is a relatively recent museum dating only to 1999. It sits though in Citadel Park, Ghent’s largest urban green space and an area of significant botanic and cultural value, and romantic 19th century architectural interest. The site – not only of the Contemporary Art Museum, but also the Museum of Fine Arts, the ICC Congress Centre and the Velodrome – has seen competing interests and audiences. Part of the redevelopment’s remit is to create more space, better balance and integrate the range of functions the museum and area need to fulfil, and bring the existing spaces up to modern standards.
Energy guzzler
“Keeping the S.M.A.K. as it is today is not an option,” Sami Souguir, Ghent’s alderman for Urban Development has said. “The building is an energy guzzler and the collection cannot be displayed in optimal conditions.”
The job will go to David Kohn Architects, a multi-award-winning firm that has form across Europe in urban cultural capital, with clients as diverse as Oxford University, London’s Royal Academy of Arts, the Lützowufer apartment building, Berlin, and the University of Hasselt, also in Belgium.
While the firm’s design for S.M.A.K. has not yet been finalised, around 20,000 square metres of exhibition and public space will be created. One linchpin of the proposal is a new life for the Floralia Hall or Floraliënhal, a World Fair 1913 structure in glass and steel that has been vacant for years but is set to play a central role in the park once more, as the museum’s new main entrance. It will keep its vast steel roof but see a new ground floor, roof openings, seating zones and greenery.
Ambitious circular approach
The brief included bringing the buildings up to the latest climate standards and another feature of the David Kohn approach that won the jury’s heart is its radical sustainability, retrofitting existing symmetrical facades with insulation, while magpie-ing various materials and treasures to re-use and re-purpose.
These salvaged elements include blue stone, a series of bas-reliefs, and the reintegration of the old 1856 Citadel Gate, which David Kohn describes as “an overgrown folly structure at the edge of the park”. Alongside a new belvedere tower the gate is set to form “an entrance to the cluster of buildings”.
Reacting to the results of the open call, studio director David Kohn said, “We are absolutely thrilled to have won the competition to extend SMAK in collaboration with noAarchitecten and Asli Çiçek,” studio director David Kohn said, adding, “The project is ambitious in its approach to experiencing art within a park setting and to addressing the climate crisis through circular construction.”
During the weekend of 22 and 23 June, local residents and Gentenaars are invited by the Flemish Government’s Architect Team (Vlaams Bouwmeester) to give their views on the ultimate design. According to the team’s press page: “Everyone is welcome between 2:00 pm and 5:00 pm at Citadelpark. Those who wish can also register for a workshop on Sunday 23 June from 2:00 to 4.30 pm.”
