VAI in conversation with the architects of Het Predikheren

The ruin as guiding principle

The realisation by Korteknie Stuhlmacher Architects, Callebaut Architects and Bureau Bouwtechniek plays a new register in the interweaving of contemporary architecture and the care for the past, between matter and the immaterial experience of time and space. The particular concept underlying the recent redevelopment assumed the preservation of all temporal layers of the almost 400 years of history that the site bears, including the less glorious and the defensive. The ruinous became the guiding principle for the building's future.