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ANTWERP | Daniel Libeskind and Fernand Huts’ controversial Boerentoren redesign dropped, but skyscraper will get new viewing platform

Posted by Timothy on

In Zurich, where Katoen Natie leader and multimillionaire Fernand Huts presented his T-rex skeleton, the self-proclaimed philanthropist announced the very controversial redesign of the Boerentoren in Antwerp is being dropped. Renown architect Daniel Libeskind goes back to the drawing board. 

In Switzerland Huts told the press the originally presented redesign was never really the objective. 

“Huts tries to make it seem that it was never actually the intention to push that first design through. It was simply the most beautiful concept of a competition, something that appealed to Huts and when it turned out to click with the Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind, known all over the world, the man from New York was selected from the eleven participants in the competition. chosen for further cooperation”, Het Nieuwsblad, Gazet van Antwerpen and De Standaard write. 

It is hard for powerful people to concede they were wrong and often they don’t understand other people don’t like their “great” ideas. 

Huge criticism

The proposed redesign received huge criticism from government officials from the City of Antwerp and Flanders, from architects and from the general public. 

So Huts is changing his tune. 

Panorama platform

The new design will respect the heritage, emphasize Fernand Huts and Katharina Van Cauteren, who heads the cultural Phoebus Foundation of Katoen Natie. 

The cube with the KBC logo on top of the Boerentoren has no value and will disappear. The former panoramic room just below it is worn out and no longer safe for large groups of people and will also be demolished.

Its place will be replaced by a brand new panoramic platform. Next to the tower there will be a construction to get many people up and back down safely. Huts and Van Cauteren are still debating the size of the platform and construction, but the new plan will no longer have anything to do with the first design. It’s up to New York architect Libeskind to make something beautiful out of it and something that no longer arouses general indignation.

Commitment

Despite the setback, Huts is still committed to the project. The Boerentoren should be a building that is open to the people of Antwerp and to visitors from Flanders and from all over the world, dedicated to culture, exhibitions, the skeleton of the Tyrannosaurus. Why a T-rex? Huts thinks it’s cool. 

For Huts, the Boerentoren or Farmers Tower should add to the city value of Antwerp, which “could be better than Amsterdam“.

No apartments

Despite having received many requests, the tower will not feature apartments. No-one wants to rent, but wants to own, Huts says. And the multimillionaire does not want ownership to fragment; which would complicate managing the premises. 

He’s very right about that. Apartment buildings have associations of co-owners, and these are democracy at its worst. 

Fans

The now canned radical proposals for the tower also had fans. Self-proclaimed ‘professional Antwerpian and Belgian’ Tanguy Ottomer says Antwerp citizens can be very conservative relating to architecture. Antwerp-Central Railway Station, the Museum At the Stream (MAS), Het Steen and even the Cathedral had its detractors and are now being revered. 

Antwerp journalist Greg Van Roosbroeck advocates a fresh approach. “If we want  tourists to stand in front of the Boerentoren with their mouths open in four years’ time, we will have to surprise in one way or another”, argues in Gazet van Antwerpen. 

“Not necessarily with a double-glazed construction – that has now been retired – but don’t let out-of-the-box thinking stop. In a spirit of the times in which nothing is allowed and everything is questioned, we need designs that dare to color outside the lines. Of characters rowing against the current.”

2028

Huts believes the renewed Boerentoren will be ready by 2028. Four years to go. 

On the look of Antwerp