Haalbaarheids- en locatiestudie voor het culturele Museumlandschap
Projectteam IEA + Antea + Rebel Group

A research study was commissioned by Aalst, carnival city, to devise a museums-network for bringing together different cultural identities. The meet and greet between residents and visitors, beyond age category, is central, as well as the wonderment for the past and present culture.
Currently, the cultural initiatives are fragmented and scattered throughout the city. Heritage buildings and industrial warehouses side by side are telling the history of the city where the cultural living heritage is built up and manufactured every year.
Locations as Pupillensite, Manchestersite, the "'T Gasthuys" city museum, Sint Martinus church and the carnival atelier halls are the protagonists of the cultural cluster.
The research maps these diverse locations and their specific potential in the cultural landscape. It makes spatial analyzes and simultaneously investigates urban functioning at all its layers: mobility, heritage, tourist infrastructure, carnival routings, housing development and emerging urban projects.
Deze analyses toetsen af hoe een logische en intrinsieke clustering kan plaatsvinden overheen de verschillende locaties die worden gescreend op intrinsieke potenties en onderlinge verbondenheid, alsook op ruimtelijke en technische kwaliteiten en financiële haalbaarheid volgens invulling.
The museums-network enacts the cultural-historical perception of Aalst, which is experienced at urban fabric level and for which various strategic interventions can be defined.
The cultural landscape is not a frozen final image, but an evolving urban concept within which touristic initiatives can be developed, both in terms of physical interventions on buildings or public space and temporary incentives such as exhibitions, city routes and festivities.
It is a collective property. The components of the cultural landscape can be either publicly or privately owned. Later on, several strategic public projects initiate and accelerate the propagation of the cultural and historical experience.