Some renovation going on, at a commercial building in central Brussels. Similar work has obviously been performed at the neighboring building on the right, and a large-scale renovation with slightly different results at the building on the left. I didn’t take a picture, but a few blocks away a similar renovation had turned the first and second floor of a building like this into the entrance for an underground garage.
There are several ways of looking at this. First, these small buildings, which constitute a good percentage of the center of the city, are as simple and adaptable as New York lofts. That would seem to be a good thing from the angle of preservation of the existing building stock as well as from the angle of saving money for businesses. Second, the alteration seen above completely changes the original appearance of the building by replacing nearly all of the bottom two floors with glass storefront. That’s terrible for preservation of the historic architecture. Third, if these buildings weren’t so adaptable, they’d be more likely to be demolished, and half a preserved loaf is better than none. Finally, the physical change in the building is reflective of a change in social patterns and use: retail is now an important function for the street in a way it was not when these buildings were constructed.
In other words: this alteration is good for preservation and bad for preservation, reflects changes in society and a desire for continuity, and shows the adaptability of the old buildings by obliterating parts of them. Perhaps we need to be as adaptable in our analysis as the buildings are in physical reality.
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