Triest Plein - Monumentality, Representation, and Democracy

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Abstract

The Caritas Psychiatric Center (PC Caritas) in Melle, Belgium, is a clinic campus consisting of about a dozen buildings embedded into a park. Sint Jozef, named after the priest Petrus Jozef Triest from Gent, Belgium, is one of the remaining villas built in 1908 and centrally located on the campus. It was initially used as a treatment center for so-called “hysterical women” and has experienced multiple changes of functions over time. Like other buildings on the campus, it was considered not to meet today’s requirements anymore and therefore decided to be demolished. Thanks to the research collective BAVO, the demolition was halted midway, and competition to start a second life of the ruin was initiated. The experimental concept presented by architecten de vylder vinck taillieu was chosen and developed further together with multiple participants, including doctors and clinic staff, patients and visitors, and others. The project was then renamed Kanunnik Petrus Jozef Triest Plein, in short Triest Plein (Triest Square).

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