‘SportinGenk’ is sensational. The sports campus is located in a clearing in a wooded area. When you drive onto the grounds, you discover the complex all at once: two bright white buildings rising proudly above the parking lot below. Ringed by an immaculate lawn, with a dense wood in the background, it brings to mind a Fata Morgana of the 1960s: buildings as bold and uninhibited sculptural gestures. Monuments for a new age. After this first rush, you realize that only one of the two buildings does indeed date from that time – well, from 1975. The other, a design by Bel Architecten, only came to stand beside it in 2018. In doing so it saved the older building. Heritage conservation does not always have to be drab.
The story begins around 2010 with an Open Call to extend Isia Isgour and André Paduart’s 1975 swimming pool cum sports complex. The complex consists of two parts. The base is a massive, plinth of white concrete several metres high, partly sunk into a slope. This is where a sports and gymnastics hall used to be. Above it, a little further to the northwest, is the roof of the swimming pool, with the bathtub, technical areas, changing rooms, etc. in the base.
This roof is a tour de force: it hovers above the plinth like a pair of open butterfly wings. This hypar-scale roof, divided into six planes by stiffening ribs, is said to be only 6 to 8 cm thick, but it spans a hall of roughly 70 by 40 m, without a single intermediate support. Even today, it is still impressive. This is due not only to Paduart’s engineering skills, but above all to the subtle work on the volume. The plinth and the roof keep each other visually in balance, and the whole is so beautifully embedded in the undulating landscape that you do not realize how high the plinth actually is. You only notice this on the east side, where a very sturdy glass curtain wall offers a view of the sports hall.
In 2010, however, this sports hall proved to be too small for the demand for spaces for ball games and gymnastics, and also too low according to current indoor-sports standards. The Open Call therefore asked for a solution to extend this plinth in terms of height, length and width. Bel showed that such a solution could not be resolved satisfactorily, neither architecturally nor logistically. Any extension would upset Isgour’s careful composition and the green buffer with Emiel Van Dorenlaan.
Nevertheless, Bel found an elegant solution. Isgour originally planned a whole campus with various buildings next to the current complex, entirely in the spirit of CIAM after the war. Without following that plan to the letter, it was a licence to build a second, new complex for ball sports parallel to the existing one, some 40 m away from it. The existing sports hall could then be optimized for gymnastics, dance classes, etc. A pleasant outdoor area with benches and playground equipment was then necessary between both buildings. And so it happened.
What is remarkable, however, is that Bel intuitively understood that this complementary sports hall should not be a ‘shoebox’ but should have the same constructive and sculptural bravura as the existing building, without resembling it (just as in Chandigarh no two buildings look alike, but rather compete with each other). They have succeeded very well in this, with the help of Laurent Ney.
The building consists of three paraboloid shells that press against each other. These parabolas operate almost purely by means of pressure. The middle shell does not touch the ground, stopping instead at the intersection with the outer two. Together, they create an enormous, almost unobstructed space of roughly 80 by 60 m. This is intersected halfway by a beam that accommodates changing rooms and service areas. Stands push up against it on both sides. On top of this beam is a platform that runs under the three shells. This is where the cafeteria is housed. This platform makes the enormous size of the structure tangible. You also notice how cleverly roof lights have been incorporated in the construction in order to allow maximum daylight in. It is all finished to perfection, with excellent sound quality besides – a tricky point in sports halls. Even after three years of use, it still looks brand new. That too is exceptional.
But the real miracle is that Bel installed a time machine here. The new building saves the old one from meaningless ‘pastness’. The ideas of the monument are brought back to life, not by hopelessly fiddling with details, but by placing a younger sibling next to it, which confirms openly, but in its own key, that this is how we as architects can think about the world.
