A good renovation is like looking through a keyhole, on one side into the glass-enshrouded, plastic-topped, steel-girded architecture of the now and nevernevernow, while, from the other side, ahh-ing over the glory days of each craggy brick edifice. When the new stuff (wall-swallowing windows, jagged outcroppings of steel, vaulted plastic roofing) is unceremoniously grafted onto the old, that's where the real magic happens. It's basic juxtaposition: betwixt blown-out brick framework and stolid stone masonry the add-ons look hyper advanced, lifting the ruins into museum works. Take, for example, the Convent of the Order of St. Clare in Belgium, recently given an update and addition by A2O Architecten. Now a health care facility, the architects capped the structures with austere glass boxes and decking. As Design Boom writes, "Everything is submerged in an atmosphere of modesty, simplicity, even a certain degree of poverty."
· All Conversions posts [Curbed National]
· All Renovations posts [Curbed National]