Faculty of Architecture Tournai

The new building of the Tournai Faculty of Architecture is embedded in a conglomerate of old buildings. It deliberately sets itself apart from the existing buildings. Nevertheless, it fits in, creates new connections and quotes the small-scale nature of its surroundings.

The Faculty of Architecture at the University of Leuven has had a new building since 2016. It is located in the middle of the Belgian city of Tournai. Embedded in the middle of a perimeter block development, the new building is surrounded by structures from different eras. These include a monastery, industrial buildings and a manor house. As different as the existing buildings are, the new white building seeks their proximity, docks onto them and connects them with each other. At the same time, the Tournai Faculty of Architecture clearly sets itself apart from them.

The school of architecture is a new attraction in the heart of the Belgian city of Tournai. Even today, a large proportion of the students come from France. This goes back to the roots of the school. It used to be located in Paris and later emigrated to Belgium. There, the Ecole d’architecture finally became a faculty of the Catholic University of Leuven in 2010. And this educational institution was to move to the center of Tournai. After all, that was part of the concept. The faculty was deliberately relocated to the center of the city to counteract the ongoing exodus. Initially, the plan was to build right next to a medieval cathedral, but then the school was allocated a centrally located industrial wasteland. This offered old industrial relics, a manor house from the 17th century and presented the architects with a number of challenges.

In 2013, five offices took part in a competition to redesign the architecture school in Tournai. The building site proved to be difficult. Only the French firm Lacaton & Vassal and the Portuguese architects Manuel and Francisco Aires Mateus came up with convincing solutions. In the end, the young Portuguese won the competition with a strikingly simple concept, consistency and a bold and radical approach. They showed little pity for the old outbuildings on the site, instead demolishing them in favor of a central axis. In doing so, they created a link across the block, which today connects Rue du Glategnies with Rue Haigne. With this step, the architects also created space for a transverse bar that stretches between two old factory facades. This bar also frames an inner courtyard, which gives the courtyard area a focal point.

The existing buildings on both sides of the new central axis accommodate various functions of the architecture school. Consequently, the library and the media archive occupy the first floors of the old weaving and spinning mill. Students also have their workstations on the upper floors. The old manor house provides space for the administration and seminar rooms are housed in other, more recent buildings. The keystone of the ensemble is a concrete crossbar that spans the western entrance area and accommodates a forum.

While the competition envisaged keeping the entrance area to the courtyard open like arcades, it is now closed off by fixed glazing. Design critiques, exhibitions, award ceremonies and celebrations take place behind this, which are visible from both inside and outside. Lectures, conferences and workshops, on the other hand, take place in the Audimax, for which the slightly sloping site was used. It steps down generously from the courtyard to the street side. The stairwells are located in the head buildings of the elongated new structure. In one, a double-flight spiral staircase winds breathtakingly towards the light. The other encloses a staircase that leads upwards in strictly parallel flights.

The most exciting thing about the work of Manuel and Francisco Aires Mateus is the consistency with which they implement their design idea. How straightforwardly they integrate their white, angular new buildings into the existing structure, how they juxtapose positive and negative forms. In doing so, they pick up on something characteristic of the city of Tournai and reinterpret its special features. They create complete spaces that are nevertheless permeable and interconnected. They create new building forms from which corners, edges and openings are cut out. These look like quotes from the ordinary houses of Tournai. In addition, these incisions mark and emphasize transitional situations: Main and side entrances, gateways, loggias with terraces and skylights. Only the auditorium deliberately sets a counterpoint. It is compact, complete and manages without recesses and incisions.

More about projects in Belgium: Chipperfield restores historic grand hotel on the Belgian coast in Nieuwpoort, Flanders.