Ghent City Hall
The Ghent City Hall ( Stadshal van Gent ) is a modern structure built between 2009 and 2012 in the historic center of the Belgian city of Ghent .
prehistory
The building site, which is adjacent to the town hall of Ghent to the north, the St. Nicholas Church to the west and the belfry to the east, was demolished for the large exhibition of 1913. An administration building was to be built on in the 1960s. However, it was subsequently unused for decades and served as a parking lot. Plans to build a car park there were rejected in a referendum in 1996.
The current construction
Ultimately, the Flemish architects Paul Robbrecht, Hilde Daem and Marie-José van Hee built a multifunctional hall here in the wake of a second architectural competition (2005), consisting of a 40 m long, roofed wooden structure that rests on four concrete corner pillars and is freely accessible from all sides is. The roof is asymmetrical and designed as a double gable roof. Below the hall there is a beer bar, a public toilet, a fountain and a bicycle parking lot.
In 2013 the project was included among the finalists for the Mies van der Rohe Prize supported by the European Union . On the other hand, it met with sharp criticism, among other things because it obscures the view of the Renaissance facade of the Ghent town hall and the belfry. The UNESCO not changed the categorization of the Belfry as a World Heritage Site , but expressed its regret not having been consulted on the issue, and that of Flanders regional parliament formulated in this regard an apology the other hand, the construction of supporters of modernity as a symbol structure for confident contemporary buildings in The old town ambience is praised: “In Frankfurt am Main the old town is being rebuilt, in Berlin the city palace . In the Flemish town of Ghent, in the shadow of the Belfry, which is listed as a World Heritage Site, a new building shows that there is another way. "
Individual evidence
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 3 ′ 14.4 " N , 3 ° 43 ′ 27.8" E