The project developed by Francisco Mangado | Mangado y Asociados, in collaboration with Archipelago Architects, seeks to serve as a container for all types of events in a simple but versatile way that facilitates logistical access for different future interventions and visitors.
The building opens towards the city in the form of a plaza closed on three of its sides, seeking an appropriate scalar relationship with a large building for a space dedicated to holding mass events.
Thanks to a metal structure that covers spans of up to eighty meters and an arrangement of visible installations that seek to represent order, the new enclosure meets the needs of the neighbourhood, the neighbours and the different mass events for which it opens and is configured.
New Exhibition Hall Liège Expo by Francisco Mangado. Photograph by Juan Rodríguez.
Project description by Francisco Mangado
The project is to build a trade fair centre in the Belgian city of Liège, with a total area of 20,300 sqm. It is located in a transit area between an industrial area on the outskirts and an area with residential towers built in the sixties to house the population of emigrants, mostly from southern Europe. The site is a blurred place, the result of the demolition of some pre-existing industrial buildings and with land that has been subject to intense and costly decontamination operations. In the area there are few facilities and an urban development of little value but which nevertheless has some very notable pieces of modern architecture and an undoubted urban potential.
A trade fair centre serves to host many activities and events. It is usually governed by criteria of efficiency and circulation. It is assumed that the spaces, beyond having architectural intentions, must be sufficiently nondescript so as not to interfere with that efficiency. The only thing that is required is to make large empty boxes, without hierarchies, which will store in an orderly manner the large exhibitions to be held, usually crowded, full of visitors who, in most cases, only value the clarity of the routes without showing any empathy for an architecture whose objective is not to exist. Of course, the project is never expected to make architectural reflections that affect the idea of the context. The ideal location is always in the outskirts, in non-places.
The project participates, as something obvious, in the approaches of efficiency that, related above all to logistics and the massive mobility of visitors, must be taken into account. However, it understands that in some way this attitude is sufficient. The character of the place of transition that the site we occupy has, gives us the opportunity to go further and make an architectural proposal with the aspiration that the building helps to transform and shape the immediate environment with urban quality.
The solution proposes locating the entire part of the program with a civic, more public vocation in the orientation facing the houses, which is also where public access for visitors from the more consolidated city will take place. The logistics accesses, always heavy, with more interference and inconvenience, will be made directly to the interest from the opposite end, next to the more industrial area. In the middle are all large exhibition areas.
The public uses, the access, the restaurants and cafeterias, the offices and some less massive exhibition areas, form two open arms that define an access plaza to the new fairground. A decision that by itself, in the case at hand, transforms what was destined to be a large "visitable warehouse" into a building with architectural will and with the objective of qualifying an urban environment that is now without value in the city. The arrival of the tram to this area, a project that was planned and has been carried out simultaneously with the works on the fairground, a tram that brings visitors and stops next to this square, only adds to the interest of this decision, which is more of an urban than an architectural nature.
The square thus created, closed on three of its sides and open towards the city, seeks an appropriate scaling relationship with a large building, while creating a space where the opportunity is offered to hold mass events, concerts, shows... different and open to all citizens. Its perimeter houses uses, especially restaurants and cafes that, although dependent on the management of the fairground, can also serve the neighbours of the neighbourhood especially during the weekend, this issue of great interest both from the point of view of economic management and for what it means in terms of services for a population that, at present, does not have them nearby. A space, in short, that also provides architectural dignity to a building that, despite what has been indicated, is still significant for the city of Liège and a sort of “ambassador” for visitors.
Apart from that, everything is very simple. The exhibition areas, of large dimensions, are two that can be united into one. The types of events to be held are of all kinds (to give us an idea, the last one was a national horse riding championship). Logistical access to them is from the back or from the sides. Trucks must be able to access the interior). The metal structure covers spans of up to eighty meters. The visible installations seek order. The interior is mostly made of exposed concrete. The exterior, facades and roofs of pre-lacquered metal panels.
