Renovation and extension of the Trinkhall Museum

Programme: Renovation and expansion of areas housing the museum's permanent and temporary exhibitions, reserves and workshops, museum café, offices and pedagogical activity room.

About: The Trinkhall, a modernist pavilion built in 1963 in the heart of Avroy Park in Liège, was originally a luxury restaurant with a dance hall and a large panoramic roof terrace. Finally abandoned in 1982, it was occupied by the non-profit organization Creahm, which improvised exhibition spaces and workshops for artists with mental disabilities. Over the years, the building became the headquarters of two dynamic but gradually cramped poles: the MADmusée and the MADcafé. To support the museum's development ambitions and overcome the critical disrepair of the building, the city of Liège, owner, launched in 2008 an architectural competition. The project combines two requirements: doubling the surface area and overall energy renovation. The architects have implemented a simple strategy: an ultra-compact project encompassing the existing pavilion in a slightly enlarged translucent envelope which allows the deployment of functions in peripheral spaces. A twenty-one meter steel structure spans the existing edifice, creating a large protective shape. Under a green roof, the ultra-light envelope made of multi-layer panels of polycarbonate, luminous, insulating and economical, helps to create a weightless, mysterious and poetic atmosphere. every element of the architecture, from the coffered concrete of the mushroom column to the furnishings of the museum, carries the same attention to detail in the service of the overall coherence of the project.