Our Competition Proposal
In 2024, a multidisciplinary design team led by DRDH and Jamie Fobert Architects was one of six teams shortlisted to design a new home for the M HKA (Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp). The project aims to enhance the Flemish contemporary visual arts sector and position it more prominently on the international stage, with outstanding contemporary galleries as well as spaces dedicated to artistic and curatorial research.
Fundamental to our design approach was the need to conceive a new building which represented a continuum with the history and character of the M HKA and the broader culture of contemporary art practice. The M HKA played a significant role in developing the concept of the “constituent museum”, which redefines the museum as a collaborative project between the public, the artist and museum staff, embedded within the community. A sense of openness was therefore fundamental for the new building, as a way for the M HKA to establish itself as a bold and welcoming public figure in the city.
Inside our proposed new museum building, the galleries are beautiful, highly functional and adaptable spaces, with carefully controlled natural light and air handling, maximising opportunities for curatorial freedom and exhibitions of international quality.
As for the building itself, sustainable re-use was a key principle. The "anarchitecture" works of artist Gordon Matta-Clark, a key figure in the foundation of M HKA, and his epigram, “undoing is as important a democratic right as doing”, offered both conceptual and material inspiration.
Our proposed building would be something new, yet also something which already partially exists. It would be constructed from constituent parts, incorporating re-appropriated materials and physical manifestations of heritage, urban relationships and existing spaces, as well as significant artistic interventions. All these elements are woven together in a coherent whole that carefully responds to the ambitious functional, spatial, social, and museological aspirations of the brief.
The scale, form and grain of our proposal relates to historic Antwerp’s trinity of towers, the cathedral, the oudaan and the borentoren. Equivalent in height to the oudaan, it has a base, middle and crown, with the building body terminating at the same level as the borentoren. The corner towers of the crown speak to the twin spires of the cathedral. We proposed using 450m3 of terracotta sourced from the prefabricated terracotta floors of the existing building, combined with silt dredged from Antwerp’s port, to make a bespoke ceramic, so that the building is clothed in a material which is particular to its own location and history.
Archival research carried out by our team’s heritage architects, Origin, confirmed the strong likelihood that an historic lock, part of the rich history of Antwerp as a major international port, remains underneath the current building on the site. Proposing the retention of the lock defined our urban strategy for the museum and its relation to the city. At the base of the new museum building, the lock is revealed as a generous interior space, allowing natural light and fresh air into the lower levels and creating visual connections between museum users and passers-by.
The resulting proposal is sustainable, adaptable, and specific, grounded in its place and shaped by the layered history of its location.