KANAAL
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Residential community in a former industrial distillery in Antwerp, where to admire architecture and contemporary art
Here is an unusual place! Located on the banks of the Albert Canal, which connects Antwerp and Liege, Kanaal is the name of a former industrial distillery converted into a residential community. The brick warehouses and concrete silos have been preserved and integrated with new contemporary buildings to make a coherent whole. The project was initiated by the famous gallery owner Axel Vervoort. You can visit his gallery (www.axel-vervoordt.com) on Saturdays for free and marvel at the architecture of the place which mixes industrial style, from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, with contemporary style. In addition to the gallery, you will be provided with a badge, a map of the place and information on the artworks you will encounter. In the public spaces, the gardens were designed by the French landscape architect Michel Desvigne (who is in charge of projects for the square of Notre-Dame de Paris and the Esplanade de la Défense). You can wander through small paths as if in a forest, and along the way you can even discover sculptures by Anish Kapoor, James Turrell (whose work is installed in a desecrated chapel), Marina Abramović, or Kimsooja and Tatsuo Miyajima's light installations placed in one of the silos. As you can see, nothing was too good to fit out Kanaal and Axel Vervoort did not hesitate to take out his address book. If you are a fan of architecture and contemporary art, Kanaal is almost too good to be true!
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