27.01.2021 Jakob Schoof

A Touch of the Ramblas: Gare Maritime in Brussels

Foto:  Sarah Blee

Back in the days of customs borders in Europe, the 37-ha Tour & Taxis complex in west Brussels was long the largest cargo-handling post in the Belgian capital. The Gare Maritime, which was erected from 1902 − 1907, counted among Europe’s biggest covered freight depots. After a consortium of three real-estate developers bought the entire area in 2001, a new era began for the railway station. But what to do with the 276 x 138 m, seven-aisled hall, which was not historically protected but was doubtlessly worth preserving?

Neutelings Riedijk and their partner studio Bureau Bouwtechniek have now provided a solution: on behalf of the developer Extensa, they have added twelve three-storey, solid-wood constructions inside the former railway station. These feature office and retail spaces connected via open, sculptural, oaken stairways that serve as emergency pathways and connections alike. Most of the in-builds are located in the four outer aisles. The middle three form a publicly accessible indoor esplanade; the architects compare it to Barcelona’s Ramblas. Landscape planners from the Omgeving studio have designed ten themed gardens for this space.

Unlike other, more familiar “building-within-a-building” concepts, with the Gare Maritime the historical substance also forms the thermal shell. To this end, it was elaborately modernized and well-insulated under the aegis of Jan de Moffarts Architecten in order to satisfy Brussel’s ambitious energy regulations. Outside, the roof has been covered with 17,000 m2 of photovoltaic modules that work to make the building a zero-energy structure. In contrast, the architects had the inside of the historical wooden cladding of the ceiling removed, sandblasted and remounted onto the narrow, triple-jointed steel frames that bear the halls. To make it possible for the office levels to do without a sunshade on the exterior of the building, the triple-glazed windows there consist of electrochromic glass whose sensors darken the panes automatically. Ten geothermal probes, a heat pump and adiabatic intake-air cooling ensure energy-efficient heating and cooling. The architects have even considered later dismantling. For instance, the laminated timber beams and the cross-laminated ceilings inside the wooden build-ins have not been glued together, but rather screwed. This is advantageous not only in terms of recyclability, but also for logistics, for it was not possible to manoeuvre heavy transport vehicles or cranes inside the historical halls.

Foto:  Filip Dujardin