Multi Development Belgium

A feast for the eyes in every respect

Many a town in Belgium has a 'stadsfeestzaal' or 'festival hall'. But if there's one stadsfeestzaal that's really worthy of its name, then it has to be Antwerp's. After a fierce fire in 2000, the building was reopened in October 2007. And it's become a festival hall again: a feast for the eyes and a feast to be in.

Transformed

Nina Graziosi, director of the Dutch architects firm, Graziosi Progretti, found the whole thing an enormous challenge from the outset. "I realized at once that the interior hospitality elements could not be allowed to compete with the richly decorated neo-classic interior. But then you have to find a partner who can translate that setup and all the associated facilities into feasible materials and then produce and install them."

Realized in only six months

"We had already worked together with Gielissen several times and we knew what we could expect from them, especially when it comes to complicated interior projects, and that they wouldn't fight shy of certain problems simply because they got in the way of the deadlines. Instead of the eighteen months throughput time you normally have for a project as complicated as this one, we had, for all kinds of reasons, only six months. So they needed to be well prepared on things like the planning, the logistics approach, choice of materials and on coming up with certain technical solutions."