MOVY CLUB

Renovation of a movies theater in Forest

Year ︎︎︎ 2021
Phase ︎︎︎ Competition
Surface ︎︎︎ 440m²
Budget ︎︎︎ 1.900.000 €
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The Movy Club competition, organised by the commune of Forest and the bMa, requires the renovation of a local movie theater and the implementation of additional program in Vorst, Brussels. This competition, despite its relatively small size, embodies the ambitions of the city in terms of cultural, social and ecological valorisation of a built heritage in a neighbourhood in the midst of a change. The history of the Movy Club bears witness to the rise and fall of local movie theaters. The cinema first opened its doors in 1934 and since then it underwent a series of transformations that followed stylistic tastes of the time but also the evolution of film projection techniques.

The competition brief asked on one hand to clearly define a strategy to valorize the heritage of the cinema room while making it up to date with current techniques and on the other hand to develop a small cultural facility for the neighborhood. This programmatic dichotomy embodies a great potential, that of developing two universes that echo each other, to define a project with a double ambition. This resulted in two mirroring entities: on the one hand, the existing cinema which is restored to its former splendour. On the other hand, a café and workshop, offering space for interaction and creation, spatially organised as a sequence spaces marked by two gardens, and as such a de-densification of the plot. A technical strip seperates both sides of the program, giving both autonomy and also continuity between the different parts of the project.