Categories: Cool Museums
      Date: Jan 25, 2011
     Title: MAC: Contemporary Arts Museum in Mons

 

The MAC, the Contemporary Art Museum of French-speaking Belgium, is housed in the former Grand-Hornu colliery. This industrial heritage site located in the province of Hainaut close to Mons has been chosen as the site of this new Contemporary Art Museum, headed by Laurent Busine, the former Director of the Charleroi Fine Arts Museum (Palais des Beaux-Arts)and a world-renowned organizer of exhibitions. The museum's architecture, consisting partly of renovations and partly of new buildings, opens out onto several locations on the site, which since the 1990s has been converted into a tourist, cultural and scientific pole of development.

 

The Grand-Hornu association, centre for design and applied arts that has been based on the site for several years, makes the most of this unusual location to organize various events, including international exhibitions. A fixed price entrance ticket gives access to the site, the Contemporary Art Museum and its exhibitions, as well as those organized by Grand Hornu Images.

 

The author of this architectural adventure, Pierre Hebbelinck, a young architect and town planner based in Liege and winner of the Baron Horta Prize in 2002 was anxious to pay tribute to the site's history while giving a forward-looking perspective to the museum project.

 

In addition to its permanent collections, the MAC also organizes temporary exhibitions. Special attention has been given to making the museum multilingual: the explanatory texts are in French, Dutch, English and German and guided visits in these same languages can be organized upon request.

 

On the first Wednesday of each month, entry is free and art historians are present in the exhibition rooms to comment the works to those who are interested. The museum is open every day except for Monday from 10 AM to 6 PM and the entry price for individual has been fixed at 6 Euros.

 

The museum is located: Site du Grand-Hornu, rue Ste Louise 82, B-7301 Hornu (next to Mons) - For more information call 065/65.21.21. You may also send an email or visit the website of the museum.

 

History of the Grand-Hornu Colliery

Le Grand-Hornu, a neo-classical style mining complex near Mons in Belgium, was built by the French-born industrialist, Henri de Gorge (1774-1832) between 1810 and 1830. The offices of the colliery are built around two magnificent courtyards and include warehouses, stables, workshops, iron and brass foundries, coke-fired furnaces and engineers; offices. Next to the industrial complex is the De Gorge estate, the first example of industrial town planning in continental Europe, housing workers in 425 houses, each with its own garden. Later additions include a school, a library, a bath house, a dance hall and a hospital. Henri de Gorge was very receptive to the latest advances in technology and greatly increased productivity at Grand-Hornu mines. He took Belgian nationality and was elected a Senator in 1831, but died a year later during a cholera epidemic.

 

In 1843 a limited company was created by his successors. The limited company was dissolved in 1950, and mining finally ceased in 1954. In 1969 a Royal Decree ordered the demolition of Grand-Hornu, but in 1971 a local architect, Henri Guchez, bought the ruined complex and began the task of restoration, installing his offices in some of the buildings and using others for exhibitions and conferences.

 

The Province of Hainaut took over ownership of Grand-Hornu in 1989, when the idea of establishing a Museum of Contemporary Art was first proposed. With the support of the French Community, the Walloon Region and the European Union, the plans were given the green light. After three years the intensive work, thanks to the determination, perseverance and professional expertise of three people - Laurent Busine (for 20 years director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Charleroi) and currently artistic director of MAC; Chantal Dassonville, who has been responsible for the infrastructure; and Pierre Hebbelinck, architect and the brains behind the concept, the museum now welcomes visitors from all over the world.

 

 

Press Contact:

Katie Papadopoulos

212.758.8130 x11