SO – IL

Z33 House for Contemporary Art . Hasselt

Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu (SO – IL)

Z33 is a house for contemporary art. Since 2002, Z33 has been organising projects and exhibitions that encourage visitors to see everyday things in a new way.

A unique laboratory and a meeting place for experimentation and innovation, this is the place to be when it comes to unique exhbitions of contemporary art and design. The name Z33 comes from its location, Zuivelmarkt 33, the site of the historical beguinage in the city of Hasselt.
Z33 takes pride in its non-monumental brick building from 1958. Rather than being an icon for the city, the museum treats its structure as a canvas for curators and artists, allowing them to cut through walls, paint over floors, and add on to its exterior. Rather than a polished plinth for the arts, the building is an active participant in the process of exhibition-making.

Instead of grafting a singular icon onto the idiosyncratic existing building, this proposal inherits its infrastructural qualities by offering a collection of flexible halls, laid out on an extension of the existing building grid.
A logic of corner openings applied to both old and new rooms, creates a systematic way of moving through the joined buildings. Both buildings differ in material character, but are united in a consistent concept of movement. The corner openings allow for surprising views through the building to the garden behind, and offer and endless combination of exhibition layouts, easily accommodating multiple small shows or fewer large ones.

Client: Z33
Location: Hasselt, Belgium
Program: Museum
Area: 3.000 m² / 3,300 sf
Status: Second Prize Competition, 2012
Team: Ilias Papageorgiou, Ted Baab, Nile Greenberg, Thilde Bjorkscov, Ivo Hoppers