Something old, something new
Newsletter #30 As BRUSK the new exhibition space at the heart of the ancient city of Bruges, we revisit a conversation with its architect Paul Robbrecht.
Most people in Bruges have not seen the film In Bruges. Martin McDonagh’s picturew about perdition and redemption treats the ancient Flemish city as a blank canvas; a place of which you can make a heaven or a hell, depending on the state of your soul. For Paul Robbrecht of Robbrecht en Daem such ambiguity is impossible. Bruges is a very heaven for an architect who consumes art as he breathes; who has taken it as a lifetime’s task to create buildings for art and paint pictures with architecture. BRUSK his latest building in Bruges, designed with Olivier Salens Architecten is very much in that tradition.
Our host Tim Abrahams will be writing a piece on BRUSK for About magazine in the coming weeks. It is a building which delivers that rare thing: the shock of the new. For now though listen to something old. Here is a conversation with Paul, discussing a previous project, the new entrance building to the Rubenshuis museum in nearby Antwerp.
Reading all the architecture press so you don’t have to:
Adrian Lahoud steps down as dean of RCA School of Architecture - AJ (£)
Berlin’s Pergamon Museum to reopen in mid-2027 - AP
German Pavilion in Venice addresses communist-era housing - Artnet
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