Middelheim Museum Pavilion

The Middelheim Museum is an open-air museum for modern sculpture in a 27 ha park, with works by, among others, Jean Arp, Dan Graham, Per Kirkeby, Henry Moore, Panamarenko, François Pompon, Auguste Rodin, Joep Van Lieshout and Ossip Zadkine. To house smaller sculptures, more fragile works from the collection and temporary exhibitions, Renaat Braem (1910 - 2001), one of the most important Belgian post-war architects, was commissioned to design an exhibition hall. Renaat Braem, in 1936 apprenticed to Le Corbusier, was influenced by the CIAM ideology. Throughout his career he saw architecture as the art of organising space in order to liberate human kind. His architecture gradually adopted a more organic style, which is apparent in this pavilion. The design is based on harmonic unity and organic interwovenness of architecture and nature. The shape of the skylights emphasises even more the expressive sculptural character of the pavilion.