51N4E Congress and Heritage Centre

The LAMOT brewery, since its origins in 1922, has been part of a continuous process of extension and demolition, a process of straightforward commercial reasoning whereby redundant parts are torn down without any emotion and newly needed infrastructures are simply joined onto the existing core – an unintentional lesson in straightforward reasoning. During the process we eagerly learned from this logic, re-employing it for the future development of Lamot, a mix of congress facilities and cultural amenities.Reconverting this awkward giant into a public building brought to the fore new standards of accessibility, orientation, light and views. It entails action – a surgical operation – on an urban scale. We proposed slitting open the building’s first floor: a calculated internal explosion, leaving no doubt about the future ambition of Lamot.