Justine Beaujean, Margaux Lemaire & Julien Mattart
Intra Muros. ULG Liège (Belgium).
The project takes place in Thiers, in France. The aim is to create a museum that showcases the region’s cutlery craftmanship, inside the town’s ancient hospital. The hospital, composed symmetrically around a chapel, faces the Durolle’s valley.
From either side of this chapel, the extension requalifies the two existing urban spaces in front of the hospital. The brickwork, which combines whole and broken bricks, gives the new façade a vibration. The extension articulates itself as free floors, and thus welcomes multiple scenography scenarios. The top floor benefits from a new and higher ceiling height, which allows the creation of workshop spaces. A distancing of the extension’s new floors from the ancient hospital’s facades serves to highlight them.
From now on, these fronts can be walked along, but also crossed by the visitors of the museum. The existing facades that are facing the gardens remain seemingly untouched when viewed from the valley. However, a public rooftop is created, stirring up curiosity when perceived from downtown or the old town.
In order to encourage strolls, walks and rest in the gardens of the hospital, a pedestrian access (called pedde in the region and typical of Thiers) is set up on the north-east side of the building. On one hand, it makes it possible to reach the public terrace from the street, and on the other, the hospital gardens and the valley. Access to this rooftop from the Saint-Genès church, the highest point in the old town, is also made possible thanks to a footbridge crossing an old dwelling.
At last, inside the existing chapel, a pedagogical library takes place. It aims to be as flexible as possible, making it feasible to welcome the public at all hours of the day. At night, once the furniture is rearranged, it transforms into an amphitheatre.
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