panorama photos:
Coert Verkuyl

1. The outer box is the rectangular, ultra-technological solid of modernity, whose north side is closed. The other sides remain open and provide a view of the old and new buildings. The upper horizontal surface is a rectangle of approximately eight by one hundred meters pierced with large openings and containing, in its structure, all of the technical ductwork for heating, ventilation and airconditioning, the vertical branches of which extend down into the spaces they serve.
   
   
2. Under the large electronic roof are the boxes of the existing building, most hereafter sheltered from the bad weather. The only parts demolished were a strip of the north facade and a structure situated in the southeast corner of the site (old technical spaces and keepers' quarters) whose ruinous condition did not justify restoration. We replaced these volumes and developed a new architectural and functional vocabulary (corrugated steel facades in the north and curtain wall facades in the south) that permits us, among other things, to give a resolutely contemporary and transparant image to the entrance area and the main facade of the building. At the same time, we conceived the new facilities located in the existing volumes as technically autonomous boxes while maintaining the fluidity of the Fresnoy spaces.
   
   
3. We then developed the "in-between", the space between the new steel roof and the old tile roofs. Large horizontal windows, covered with transparant sheets of glass in a semi-elliptical cut-out, create an underside of the roof flooded with light and cut through by a transversal corresponding to the project's north-south axis. A large landscaped terrace in front of the bar/restaurant profits from direct access, via the grand stair, to the garden.