The Vacant City: Urban Design Project for The Mont Des Arts, Brussels.
De-Masking the Mont Des Arts: Panorama Populaire
Project Team: Richard Plunz, Viren Brahmbhatt (Partners in-charge)

Our team was invited by Brussels2000 Committee to prepare urban design proposal for the Center of the City of Brussels. The project brief included redesign and revitalization of the historic core consisting of the Royal Citadel, Museums, National Library & Archives, the Palace of Fine Arts and Central Station. The fundamental approach to design was to make the historical layers of the city legible though a series of transmutations and careful de-masking. The controlled excavation of the site allows it to be de-masked. The de-masking makes a series of public panoramas, transforming the hermetic domain of royalty to a new populist presence. The panoramas are understood sectionally; La Putterie is returned to the body politic through its diverse layers. The Mont des Arts is opened to the city as an emblem of the cultural diversity of the Belgian state.