INTRODUCTION

“In the glad old days, before the rise of modern morbidities...it used to be thought a disadvantage to be misunderstood.”1

Modernism is one of the most controversial architecture styles ever. Torn between progress and ugliness, the utopia developed by the modernists was, during the mid XXth century, a vision for the future and had the aim to improve the society.

The Kennedy ensemble is one of the most relevant expressions of the modern period in Liège. Facing the river Meuse and the Kennedy’s bridge from which the building takes its name, the ensemble is located in the heart of the city, close to the St Paul Cathedral and the University of Liège. The tower on top of the complex is one of the most iconic landmarks in the skyline of the city and is a clear brutalist expression. This ensemble, which houses the biggest public library in Wallonia, was completed in 1971 by the architects

Jean Poskin (1916-1998) and Henri Bonhomme (dates unknown). Its construction is part of a big urban regeneration process and part of the global plan for the modernisation of the cultural institutions of Liège. Unfortunately, the authority plans to relocate the library to a new construction in 2022, making the future of the actual library still unpredictable at the moment.

In a general view, the modernist heritage is neglected by the majority and the ambitions of the modernists during that period are said to be outdated. A large amount of those productions has been destroyed without searching for any solutions or reuse possibilities following cultural, economical social issues but also to a public disinterest. This master thesis wants to bring to light the context, political and architectural, in which the Kennedy ensemble has been built. But moreover, the idea is also to understand how modernism raised and what the ideas of the architects were after the Second World War and understand how this utopia fell at the end of the XXth century.

How did modernism grow to reach this greatness and modify the face of our European cities ? In which context did the modernist dream started to decreased to arrive to this current negative meaning ? How can the architectural culture become part of our city in order to save the modernist heritage and involve people in the discipline ? This research has the aim to answer these questions through a theoretical framework in which the adaptive reuse project of the Kennedy ensemble will be realised. The methodology used is mainly the review of literature, scholar work and articles.

The first part will focus on the history of the Kennedy ensemble. In this part, the social, political, urban and architectural context will be presented, in order to understand the construction of the ensemble. It will focus on the global modern policy in Liège, then the specific case of the neighbourhood regeneration in which the ensemble took place and finally present the building itself and how it is perceived today.

The second part of the thesis has the aim to present the modernist utopia and how the movement evolved through time. It will allow to give an historical and theoretical background to the Kennedy ensemble in preparation to the design project. It will present how modernism appeared as a solution to reconstruct the cities after the Second World War and how the modernist view changed the identity of European cities. Then it will focus on the decline of the vision and its recent re-appropriation. Afterwards, the thesis will present the architectural culture as a theme to give a new momentum and a positive meaning to the controversial architectural style.

Finally, the third part of the master thesis presents the design process as an answer to the void created in the city of Liège following the Chiroux library relocation. This part will first give a context in which the re-appropriation of the modernist heritage occurs in Belgium and more specifically in Liège. After this, it will present the complex program tailored for the reuse of the Kennedy ensemble, and finally the concept and some graphic documents will be revealed to understand the design approach as a result of this research.