What began with the research project Brussels 2040 and the cultural debate around Jonction gradually evolved into a series of initiatives in Brussels’ Northern Quarter. The questions raised at the time concerning monofunctional business districts, transport hubs and hybrid urban life found a first concrete expression through the temporary occupation of the former World Trade Center towers. As a test phase before the renovation of ZIN, these occupations transformed speculative research into spaces of collective use, cultural production and experimentation. Over the years, this trajectory expanded beyond the scale of the buildings themselves. Temporary and cultural initiatives progressively reactivated parts of the neighbourhood and challenged the image of the Northern Quarter as a purely administrative district.

Ten years after the beginning of this line of investigation and action, TRACK was created in the former Train Museum at Brussels North Station, further anchoring artistic creation, education and performance within the area. Within this broader evolution, the transformation of two of the WTC towers into ZIN can be understood as part of a longer process of redefining the Northern Quarter. Since the 1970s, the WTC complex had embodied the failures of the Manhattan Plan and the isolation produced by monofunctional office development. Rather than approaching the towers as isolated objects, the reconversion by 51N4E, l’AUC and Jaspers-Eyers Architects seeks to reconnect them to the surrounding urban fabric and to the everyday life of the neighbourhood, contributing to the gradual transformation of the district into a more mixed and inhabited urban ecosystem.

Rather than a guided visit of the ZIN building itself, the activity will take the form of a walk through the Northern Quarter, exploring the sites and urban transformations that have shaped this broader reflection on the neighbourhood over the past decade.

Architect(s) : 51N4E - l'AUC - Jaspers-Eyers Architects
Client : Befimmo
Category (Brussels Architecture Prize) : Major intervention (nominated project)
Text : 51N4E