Stijn Thomas

“Originating from a time that we only know from stories´, ´strange´ relics search to their spot in daily life. Nobody has ever travelled to the time in which they were built. Nobod, living today, has asked for their existence. We just ´got´ them for free. Immediately the question rises: "why?" and more still "what to do with them?".

When you approach the citadel site of Borgloon today, nothing reminds of the rich past of this spot. It seems as if everyone has forgotten that, for 200 years, from this spot the counts of Borgloon controlled an area that was larger than Limburg is today. Not only the repressed citadel hillock with its symbolic tree, but also the strangely implanted library are the sad witnesses that until today nobody has answered the challenge to design a new future for this site. Designing a new future for the citadel hillock requires translating its historical values in a contemporary design.

The concept of this project is its contemporary answer to the original concept of the citadel. Three walks in and around the site are designed to tell the visitors the tale of the citadel hillock, each in their manner. The traditional spatial structure of the citadel has been interpreted to clarify the genius loci of the spot and to fit in the later built library. The result is a movement swing in, on and through the citadel hillock which absorbs the library and stresses the public spaces, each with a specific spatial classification. In this way, just on the border between yesterday and today, landscape and urban context, the new building creates a new intervention which is the physical but also mental steppingstone to the rich castle landscape of Haspengouw. 

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