Maud André

The Place Saint Lambert is the main square in the centre of Liège. The square is the local transport hub of the city, and is bordered with one of the most important buildings of the city: the Palais des Princes Evèques, which now houses the courthouse. Currently, the site itself is an empty space and is no longer occupied as a public space by the citizens. Yet, until 1794, the square was the site of Saint Lambert’s Cathedral, the heart of the city. Vestiges of the foundations of the cathedral have been preserved, and are currently displayed under the square in the Archeoforum museum. To design a new multifunctional centre, the project’s challenge was therefore to improve the quality of the public space taking into account the historic value of the site. In this context, the public spaces that existed at the time of the cathedral were studied. The architect Giambattista Nolli once said that the inner churches has to be considered as a public space too. Symbolic voids were kept to depict the Cathedral’s former inner space and the project’s buildings were implanted along them. Cloisters, naves, choirs and gardens get a new understanding and are reincarnated as public spaces. In this sense, the ruins of the cathedral recover their central place within the square being displayed to everyone, as an opened air museum.

 

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