OFFICE 252

A 1930s Citroën showroom and garage that takes up an entire urban block along the Brussels canal was the subject of an architectural competition for the new museum of modern and contemporary art, developed in partnership with the Pompidou Centre. The project for Kanal-Pompidou maintains the existing complex but inserts two new volumes into it: a box with a stacked series of galleries, and a silo to contain the archives and library. Through this radical intervention the Citroën building is transformed into an urban ensemble composed of different volumes with clear typological charac- teristics, all tied together by the matrix of the leftover space around it. The existing industrial halls are stripped of the additional constructions that have accrued over the lifetime of the building and returned to their original, ultra-light state. The insertion of a mezzanine level provides an overview of the interior, organises points of access, and allows for smaller, closed rooms to be installed below. Freed from technical and practical requirements, given that the museum itself is contained within the new volumes, the original building envelope could be minimally upgraded to create a tempered outside climate. Trees and urban furniture populate this new enclosed public space – a kind of hybrid of a market hall and a greenhouse – around an art museum.