I am not sure what I should think about it but it seems worth to be mentioned here, as it also was already featured in the Belgium subforum.
"World-famous French architect Christian de Portzamparc is the man in charge of turning these ambitions into reality." (Spiegel)
Portzamparc won with his project for the Rui de la Loi the central avenue alon which already today most buildings are used as offices for the EU commission or organisations that work on an EU level.
The area seems to be terrible. A four lane road with heavy traffic, constant construction works and no real places to go other than to work.
The plan should change that, reintroduce a major share of residentials and commerce in this area while at the same time increasing office space. At the same time the traffic should be reduced, the street is supposed to become friendlier for pedestrians and bicyclers.
this all should be achieved with the creation of a number of high rises along the road.
This is still in the project phase, but works should begin already in a few years. The time frame is however one reaching at least to 2025 or so.
The light rail that can be seen here is far from certain actually the chances for it are rather low. I think however that there will be a metro line with a similar route in operation not too far away.
Quelques photos (qui datent du 17 février) du nouveau toit vitré de la station de métro Schuman. Une idée belle et audacieuse, qui va complètement changer la station vu de l'intérieur...
This video is a bit older and in Dutch but I think the immages speak more than words. Brussels is one of the most conjested cities in Euorpe. Trying to fix this will include major infrastructure work for new metro and rail tunnels:
Une mise à jour sur le square Orban (photos de fin février). La Direction Générale sur la Recherche de la Commission Européenne s'est déjà installée dedans, ils ont été rapides! Les deux immeubles de logement sur les côtés ne sont pas complètement finis.
La réalisation est de qualité et l'ensemble rend bien. Le choix des matériaux est en harmonie avec le reste de la place. Par contre le gabarit fait quand même très massif.
I think the Europa building will be the first truly iconic building in the EU quarter. And also EU skeptics will love it, firstly because constructing a building costs more than one € (and that is the outmost they would deem acceptable. So they'll have a wonderful new reason to be made about the EU) and secondly because who would have thought that the "EU bubble" would ever materialize? On the other side, those wooden window maze that will be used as cladding could look amazing (or be a terrible failure). I am already excited how the end result will look like.
The new train and subway station in the NE of the EU quarters (South end is served by Leopold station)
It's a very complex station wich is taking very long to build. A new underground railway line crosses two existing subwaylines with on top of that a 5 lane tunnel of an urban expressway wich you can see is carried by the pillars and roof right above the tracks....(On the second quoted post you can see the central roof part wich carries the tunnel of the urban expressway.)
Not to mention the EU comission building is also partially on top of the station and the new Presidential Palace/ European Council is also partially on top on the other side...
BXL | EU | Europa (Europese Raad / Conseil Européen) | U/C
Now this building has turned out to be a big cube to big dissapointment amoung the Belgian forumers. The inside wich hides an egg formed structures isn't visible at all due to the cladding.
People have been calling it 'the borg cube'.
Many hope this will change once they put up the inside lighting but fear it won't change anything.
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