In November 2007, the Université Catholique de Louvain, in Belgium, launched a design competition for a new museum to replace the current, cramped home of its Renaissance paintings, contemporary art, and African sculpture. The winner was announced this past June: Chicago-based Perkins+Will, Brussels architect Emile Verhaegen, and sustainability consultant MATRIciel. The team beat out Charles Vandenhove, Massimiliano Fuksas, and the British firm Tectonics.
The future venue, which consists of two buildings on 1.2 acres overlooking a 17-acre lake, will sit aside one of the main roads leading into the town of Louvain-la-Neuve, located 16 miles southeast of Brussels. The museum site is “a critical intersection of the main town square, a large theater complex, and the lake,” says Ralph Johnson, a design principal at Perkins+Will.
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