on reuse and museum space: a conversation with hilde teerlinck
“Museum architecture today? A difficult question, because my answer is always in movement”. Hilde Teerlinck now leads an institution that has no physical space of its own, yet inhabits many: the Han Nefkens Foundation, giving artists the means of production, growth, and exchange. But spaces for art have always been her territory, from the Barcelona Pavilion, where she began with the Mies Foundation, to the FRAC Grand Large in Dunkirk, which under her leadership found its iconic home designed by Lacaton & Vassal. Temples for art or public spaces? Build more, or take away? We first met at GAM Lotto Zero, and we had a lot to talk about.
What kind of institution, what kind of space
You were director of FRAC Nord–Pas de Calais (now FRAC Grand Large) while the Lacaton & Vassal building was taking shape. Looking back, what idea of museum informed that project? And today, what do you think the building says, to its visitors, to the city, and to the territory around it?
HT The story of the FRAC Nord–Pas de Calais in Dunkerque began with an important intuition: to move the institution to the site of the former shipyard. This vision was initiated by the previous director, Katia Baudin. I had the privilege of taking this project forward, defining the program and accompanying the construction and inauguration of this new home.
From the beginning, the question was never how to build a museum in the traditional sense, but how to create a place that corresponded to the specific mission of a FRAC. A FRAC is not a museum as such. It is a collection-based institution whose role is not only to preserve artworks, but above all to circulate them, to bring contemporary art to the widest possible public through exhibitions, loans, education, and partnerships across the territory.
It exists somewhere between a museum and a Kunsthalle: it collects, but it also remains dynamic, experimental, and deeply connected to the present.
This required a very different kind of architecture. Nearly half of the building is dedicated to storage and conservation, while the other half opens itself to exhibitions, workshops, public programs, and education. The collection had to be stored within the same building because it is a permanent working tool for the team, allowing both indoor and outdoor programs and multiple ways of presenting the collection to the public.
There is a constant movement of art works, almost like an extension of the logic of the harbour itself, where circulation, exchange, and transformation define the space.
The idea was therefore not to build a “temple” for art, but a generous, open, and flexible place.
When you launch an open public architectural competition like this, there are rigorous rules: a defined program, technical requirements, constraints.
I decided to add something unusual, a small booklet filled with images of artworks, atmospheres, words, fragments of visual inspiration that could bring some colour and emotion to the call. It was a way of inviting architects, through images rather than instructions, to let their imagination move more freely.
Coincidence or not, among those images there was also the well-known photograph of twins by the photographer Diane Arbus. Looking back, it feels almost like a premonition.
Respect, freedom, and flexibility
What remains most striking is the inteligence of Lacaton & Vassal’s gesture: they did not erase the Halle AP2, but respected its industrial memory and added another volume beside it, almost like a twin.
I still remember the moment we first discovered their proposal among all the others. Today it may seem obvious, even inevitable, but at that time the expectation was to rehabilitate the Halle AP2 itself, to transform the existing structure into the museum. Their idea was radically different: not to occupy it but to leave it intact, empty, powerful and to build its exact double next to it.
For the people of Dunkirk, the AP2 (Atelier de Préfabrication 2) was never simply an old industrial shed. It was “the Cathedral,” a landmark of collective memory. Built in 1949 as the prefabrication workshop of the Ateliers et Chantiers de France shipyard, it was where some of the largest ships of the nation were assembled. For decades, shipbuilding was one of the economic hearts of Dunkirk, employing thousands of workers and shaping the identity of the port city.
“When I took the direction of the FRAC Nord – Pas de Calais, I had a dream: to build a house. In the end, I did not build my own house, but a house for a community”.
When the shipyards closed definitively in 1988, the city lost far more than an industry. It lost a social and emotional center. Most of the shipyard disappeared, and AP2 remained as almost the last monumental trace of that world of labour, pride, and collective memory. Preserving it was not nostalgia; it was dignity.
Lacaton & Vassal understood this perfectly. They did not transform the old hall into a polished museum object; they left “the Cathedral” intact and built its exact double beside it. This was an act of respect.
The result is not spectacular in an arrogant way, but through its freedom, light, and scale. It does not try to isolate contemporary art from everyday life, but places it directly within the reality of the city.
What is equally important is the building’s flexibility. Lacaton & Vassal designed it almost as an infrastructure rather than a finished object: a simple, clear, and generous structure with large spans, open floors, very few fixed divisions, and an architecture based on light, transparency, and volume rather than rigid walls.
It does not dictate one single use. It offers a framework, a kind of toolbox,that allows the space to be constantly reinterpreted. Intimate exhibitions can coexist with monumental installations; performances, concerts, archives, rehearsals, and public gatherings can all find their place naturally.
Even the most experimental and ambitious artistic visions can be given form because the architecture was conceived with freedom rather than control.
This is also what makes it sustainable. Many museums become obsolete because they are too fixed, too dependent on one program, too monumental in their certainty. FRAC AP2, as we called it at that time, avoids this trap. Its
structure can absorb new uses over time without losing its identity. It can grow, transform, and be reappropriated by future generations.
It proves that architecture can be both intelligent and deeply humane: generous in space, generous in spirit, and generous in time.
Lacaton & Vassal also taught me something essential: to look at space differently, to feel space before thinking about walls, envelopes, or the object of the building itself. That lesson has stayed with me ever since.
Then, the name.
The name of the institution evolved together with the building itself: from FRAC Nord–Pas de Calais to FRAC AP2, as we all called it during the construction period, and today, under the direction of Keren Detton, to the beautifully chosen name FRAC Grand Large Hauts-de-France.
The renaming happened following the regional reform that transformed Nord– Pas-de-Calais into Hauts-de-France. As a FRAC is a regional public institution, it naturally carries the name of its region within its identity.
But instead of simply adopting a purely administrative title, the choice of “Grand Large” gave the institution a much stronger poetic and territorial dimension. It refers to the sea, the horizon, openness, departure, and movement, everything that resonates with Dunkerque as a port city and with the very spirit of the building itself.
When you launch an open public architectural competition like this, there are rigorous rules: a defined program, technical requirements, constraints.
I decided to add something unusual, a small booklet filled with images of artworks, atmospheres, words, fragments of visual inspiration that could bring some colour and emotion to the call. It was a way of inviting architects, through images rather than instructions, to let their imagination move more freely.
Coincidence or not, among those images there was also the well-known photograph of twins by the photographer Diane Arbus. Looking back, it feels almost like a premonition.
The Han Nefkens Foundation, and something more on art “scenes”
Then came the Han Nefkens Foundation, supporting artists without owning or operating a museum of its own. It proposes a different institutional model, one based on circulation rather than permanence. Does this reflect a broader shift in the way contemporary art exists today?
When I took the direction of the FRAC Nord – Pas de Calais, I had a dream: to build a house. In the end, I did not build my own house, but a house for a community. Perhaps it is in my Flemish DNA, as they say, a Fleming is born with a brick in their stomach.
It became one of the most beautiful and life-changing experiences of my life, especially because I had the privilege of working with an extraordinary team of architects, brilliant minds, yet deeply human, generous, and disarmingly simple.
From there, my path moved from France to Spain: the direction of the Han Nefkens Foundation based in Barcelona
The Han Nefkens Foundation works without walls. No physical space, no collection, no permanent office. Everything exists through networks, exchange, and cooperation. We were nomadic long before COVID made that a shared condition.
Has art become more detached from fixed places or, paradoxically, more dependent on them?
At the Han Nefkens Foundation, we support artists by producing new works in moving image, always in close collaboration with a network of international institutions. The core idea is simple: to give artists the means to produce, the visibility to grow, and the opportunity to enter into meaningful international exchange with curators, museums, and other professionals.
Our model is quite unique: we do not simply give grants; we ensure that the work immediately enters the world through exhibitions.
This is where we differ, a grant does not end with production, it begins there. Each commission comes with a network of exhibitions, from a minimum of three to sometimes eight or more, across different countries and institutions.
Our partners are a fundamental part of the entire process, art centers, museums, and private foundations from all over the world are directly involved. More than fifty institutions worldwide come together on the same basis: curiosity, trust, and cooperation.
They select the artist together, through deep conversation and shared knowledge, and commit to presenting the new work before even knowing what the artist will create.
This gives artists the rare opportunity to see their work resonate across very different cultural, economic, and political contexts, from Japan to Northern Europe to Mexico. We make it possible for art to remain deeply connected to where it comes from, while being generous enough to move beyond that place.
“The Han Nefkens Foundation works without walls. No physical space, no collection, no permanent office. Everything exists through networks, exchange, and cooperation”.
Often, this becomes a turning point. The visibility generated by these presentations opens doors far beyond the original commission. Careers grow, networks expand, and the work continues to travel long after the first exhibitions. (For example, some emerging artists have gone on to have more than twenty-five exhibitions of their work worldwide, far beyond those initially linked to the grant.)
Where the FRAC was breathing for the city and the region, the Han Nefkens Foundation breathes worldwide from a virtual space without walls, with the same idea: connecting people through art.
Throughout your career you’ve worked across very different artistic worlds, from contemporary art to music and independent culture, and crossed paths with figures such as Harmony Korine and Scott King. Looking around today, do you see a scene, a geography or even a community that feels particularly alive? Where do you think the next generation of ideas is taking shape?
I am less interested in “scenes” as closed groups than in energies: places where artists, musicians, filmmakers, designers, and writers contaminate and inspire each other.
If I had to give one example, I would say that the Southeast Asian art scene is flourishing thanks to these artists, but also thanks to the private collectors, philanthropists, and institutions who support them and believe in them. It is an entire ecosystem that grows from individuals.
Artists like Dinh Q. Lê, who sadly passed, built an international career after growing up in the United States. When his career reached an important point, he chose to return to Vietnam. There, he opened an artist-run space, called San-Art, to bring the world back home and to create opportunities for the local art scene to engage with the wider world.
The same happened in Thailand, where Rirkrit Tiravanija, through The Land, and Korakrit Arunanondchai, through projects like Ghost Festival, created spaces where local and international artists could meet, work together, and exchange.
This is how a “scene” emerges.
These individuals feed art scenes with their energy and generosity. I profoundly admire those people around the world who share their experience, knowledge, and contacts, and who use their visibility to bring younger generations of artists from their countries into a global light.
Those are the real scenes.
Museum architecture in movement
If we leave Dunkirk aside for a moment and look at the broader landscape of modern and contemporary museums, which institution do you think has found the most convincing architectural expression in recent years? Is there some favorite one of yours?
In one line: what characteristics should a museum space have today?
Museum architecture today? It is a difficult question, because my answer is always in movement. For a long time, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark was one of my favourite museum spaces, and perhaps it still is. It is not spectacular in a loud way. It is inhabited by people. It has this extraordinary relation between art, architecture, landscape, and the sea. The building does not impose itself; it unfolds through the park, almost as if it had grown there over time. A rare balance between art, nature, and human experience.
But I am also very interested in industrial spaces transformed into contemporary art spaces. This has to do with sustainability, of course, but also with something deeper: how we convert the past into a future. How we allow memory, labour, and former uses to remain present while opening them to new forms of life.
Then there are buildings that are themselves brilliant, like SANAA’s 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa: circular, open, with no front or back, conceived almost like a park where people can enter from all directions.
I am also fascinated by M+ in Hong Kong, a museum that had to invent itself within the density and verticality of the city. What I admire most is its functionality: the clarity of its structure makes circulation remarkably fluid and intuitive. Visitors can enter from different sides, moving naturally through the building as if it were a continuation of public space rather than a closed institution.
I am also increasingly touched by architecture that accepts impermanence. THE idea that architecture does not need to pretend to be eternal is very important today
And then there are iconic architectural spaces, like the Barcelona Pavilion by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, where art can enter into a very precise and fragile dialogue with architecture. I had the privilege of beginning my career there, as coordinator of the Pavilion, inviting artists to create temporary interventions within that space. Extraordinary synergies emerged from this encounter between art and architecture.
I am also increasingly touched by architecture that accepts impermanence. In Japan, the Ise Grand Shrine is rebuilt every twenty years, not as a loss, but as continuity through renewal. This idea, that architecture does not need to pretend to be eternal, is very important today. It can be traced from Kisho Kurokawa’s Metabolist vision of buildings as living, changing organisms to contemporary architects like Shigeru Ban or Kengo Kuma, whose work embraces impermanence.
Perhaps the most successful museum architecture today is hybrid. It can be a landscape, an industrial memory, a precise sculpture, a temporary structure, or a space that almost disappears behind the experience it makes possible.
What matters is not one form, but the intelligence of the relationship: between art and people, past and future, permanence and change.
On reuse, and a museum walk in Torino
When we visited Lotto Zero at GAM Torino together, our conversation immediately turned to reuse, adaptation and subtraction as possible directions for museum architecture—ideas that also resonate with your experience alongside Lacaton & Vassal and at the FRAC. In your opinion, where is this approach needed most, and what can architecture still learn in this area?
This approach is needed almost everywhere today. We are still too quick to replace instead of asking what can be transformed, reactivated, or simply left as it is. Lacaton & Vassal have shown that architecture can be generous not only through what it adds, but also through what it chooses to preserve.
“In GAM Lotto Zero, Rather than imposing a new identity on the space, the architect chose to work with what was already there, revealing its qualities and allowing the existing structure to speak for itself”.
When we visited Lotto Zero within the GAM in Turin together, I felt that the intervention embodied this approach beautifully. Rather than imposing a new identity on the space, the architect chose to work with what was already there, revealing its qualities and allowing the existing structure to speak for itself. I was particularly touched by the decision to recover furniture that had been stored away for decades in the city hall, restore it, and return it to the building it originally belonged to. Such a simple gesture shows that architecture is not only about preserving structures, but also about preserving memory. It is a beautiful example of how care and restraint can create continuity and meaning.
In a moment of ecological urgency, subtraction and reuse are no longer only aesthetic or conceptual choices; they are ethical ones. The challenge is to see limitation not as a constraint, but as a source of imagination, responsibility, and freedom.
I am convinced that architects have the creativity and capacity to lead this shift. Perhaps what architecture can still embrace is seeing the existing not as an obstacle, but as an opportunity: to reveal rather than replace, to connect histories rather than erase them, and to create spaces that remain open to new interpretations and future uses.
Ultimately, architecture is not only about shaping spaces; it is about shaping the stories we leave behind. What stories do we choose to tell today that will inspire tomorrow?
