Stone Pole Soignies

Momentary association

Programme: The Pôle de la Pierre de Soignies is the reference center for training and exchanges, the exploitation and promotion of trades and all the lithological resources of Wallonia. It aims to develop the stone industry by creating and strengthening lifelong orientation and training courses, for the safeguarding of traditional techniques and the development of current themes such as digital technologies.

About: Located in the heritage site of the Grand Carriére Wincqz, hot spot of the Belgian industrial revolution and center of innovation for the stone industry since the XVIIIth century, the Pôle de la Pierre revives this historical vocation by reusing its industrial infrastructure for a new educational use that joins continuity and innovation. The project is the result of a competition promoted in 2011 by the IPW - Institut du Patrimoine de la Wallonie. The listed existing buildings and infrastructures have been restored, repurposed, fitted, enhanced and completed to meet the requirements of a modern vocational training center addressing both professional and general public. Our approach combined the careful preservation of any existing trace and artifact, left as found, with the transformative insertion of new architectural devices responding to new circulation, comfort, use and environmental requirements: the steel box in the 1843 Grande Scierie, the wooden cladding of the cafeteria in the Huile & Clos building, the pixelated overhang joining it with the new workshops wing, the internal staircase in the Ménuserie et Forge building, the external staircase and the internal vertical shaft in the Bureau building. The output is a "transformative preservation" that radically redefines the heritage site while respecting its legacy: compliant to the conservation protocols of reversibility and legibility while in line with the contemporary practices of adaptive reuse.